


Young and Menace

by kkeithkatt



Series: Fem Sheith Works [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blade of Marmora AU, Blade of Marmora Keith, Druid Keith, Fem Keith, Fem Sheith, Fem Shiro, Galra AU, Galra Keith, Gen, Omega Keith, Quintessence, SHEITH - Freeform, fem!sheith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 16:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15610086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkeithkatt/pseuds/kkeithkatt
Summary: She was born Kyxia.Long before Keith, before Paladin and before Blade, she had been Kyxia. And no matter how much the Empire tries to bleed the red from her or how much earth wishes to dirty her skin, she knows this to be true.Either way, she bruises purple.Alternatively: how Kyxia, the galra soldier, becomes Keith, a paladin.





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

 

She wakes to darkness.

A cut on her forehead bleeds slowly, a trail of blood obscuring the vision of her left eye. Her bones ache, muscles tensed and shaky. Her chest harness is tight, the seatbelt pressing against her ribs, digging into her skin harshly enough that it aches a little to breathe. It’s with sluggish arms that she unbuckles it, shoving it aside enough to slip out of. Her whole body protests the movement and she hisses at the flash of pain that blinds her, sinking its teeth into her head.

Her landing to earth had been rough. The pod Leader had gifted her with wasn’t suited for such travels that she’s made, she knows this. She’s not sure how he had expected this to go and she wonders what he’d curse at her for if he had seen the way she barreled through the atmosphere. It’s not her fault though, really.

The inside of her pod is small and cramped. It’s got enough room for her and her alone and nothing else, not even a bag of belongings. Not that she has many, has ever had many. Leader wouldn’t have allowed her to take anything anyway so she tries not to lament on it, instead shoving the front window open, ignoring the way the glass shakes and cracks, sending little shards everywhere, dropping big single pieces onto the dirt below.

When her boots first hit the ground, she registers the sky first.

Earth is in it’s night cycle so it’s dark. She can scarcely see anything around her, making out the shapes of inanimate objects. Judging by the lack of buildings and people, she rightly assumes she’s far from civilization. Good. That makes it easier.

She’s not sure how she’d manage explaining an alien pod. Or the purple that currently covers her skin. She has no idea what terrans look like.

There are few clouds in the sky, giving her a pretty clear glimpse at the stars above. She had passed many of them, had seen all of them already during her trip here, but to see them from the ground is always different. Always something more.

She’s spent her whole life amongst the stars. It’s rare that she finds herself looking up at them and each time manages to steal her breath away.

This must be the thing that captures the Empire’s eye, she thinks. This must be their reason, their need to have everything. She wants to hold the universe close too.

She’s unfamiliar with the earth constellations but it matters not.

Around her is dirt. Sand and dirt. A desert then. She likes the desert. One of her first bases had been on an arid planet and though it had been difficult, extremely so considering she had been working under Commander Ryzit, she had loved it. There was nothing quite like working in such a place. It reminds her of the few pictures she had seen of Dibazel.

Perhaps, she’s not the only Galra that feels inclined to such a temperament. They are, after all, suited for the environment.

She hopes it stays that way though, that she will soon find her footing on this planet.

She will be here for a long time after all.

But first, she has to hide the pod.

She looks down at herself and takes a delicate sniff and winces. She has that to deal with too.

  
  


The thing about earth, Kyxia realizes, is that it’s drastically different than anything she’s ever encountered.

First of all, they’re all so different. She’s met many races and species within the universe, has seen so many different forms of bodies, and has heard several different languages but nothing has prepared her for humans. They have unnatural skin for one, skin that hardly ever makes sense considering their environments. If they live so close to a sun as they do, why are their bodies not adapted enough to prevent sun burns? Even the darker ones can’t escape the fate, though she admits they seem to be better off. Their appendages are weaker too. Some of the creatures she’s met and heard of seem capable enough, but there’s no way humans can hunt with their short claws and poor eyesight. They can’t even track their prey by smell. Everything about them is inferior to pretty much every other being she’s met. They, at least, could handle themselves. Humans rely heavily on weapons and machines though.

The second thing she learns is that they’re behind in terms of science. Like extremely so. She’s visited planets that are behind the Empire, as it’s a given, but none have been so far behind as earth. They haven’t even ventured out of their own solar system. They’re not even knowledgeable of the parts they have discovered. It’s sad, quite frankly, and while she admits they seem to be better at some things compared to other societies, there’s no disputing that they are inadequate to most. She’s sure if the Empire were to reach Earth today, there wouldn’t be much of a struggle in overpowering them. For as much as humans are stubborn and resilient, they do not have the means to properly defend themselves.

It’s these two things, more than the other, smaller things she’s learned, that surprises her most about her mission. That confuses her, really. She had been sent here for one thing and one thing only and yet, she has no idea why it was here of all places.

Why would the Blue Lion deem this planet as a proper hiding spot?   
Then again, she’s heard that Blue preferred works in progress and earth is, most definitely, that.

Not that there’s nothing the planet has to offer. She can easily say that she appreciates the rich blue waters it has. She’s been on few planets with as much water as this one and even fewer in these shades. These waters are calming and complex, creatures in their own right really, and she’s inherently fascinated by them. She’s drawn to them, wants to sink her toes into the shallow waters by its edges and plunge herself deep into its depths as she had on one of the underwater bases the Blades have. Water, she knows, is such an amazing thing to encounter. It’s not often she has the chance to see the ocean. She’s so much more used to the metal confines of a ship and the harden floors of a military base.

But that is not her mission, nor do her actual goals align with such wishes for she finds herself in the driest places on the planet, hunting and walking through the desert, searching.

She hasn’t been on earth long but it hasn’t been a short time either. Before, her life had been much different, but when Leader had deemed it appropriate, when circumstances had deemed her a failure, a mistake, she had been sent here.

Kyxia was not good at many things but Leader knew that if any of them were to locate the Lion of Voltron, it would be her.

She has to admit. Her track record is incredibly strong.

Earth has been fairly kind to her. It’s been one of her longest posts ever. Before the Blade, when she had been a child of the Empire, her longest station had been at the request of High Priestess Haggar and she was hardly ever placed anywhere for longer than a few weeks.

She has been on earth for several months though, a lonely child of the universe, and never before has she quite felt so rooted.

It’s an odd feeling. One she’s not sure was ever meant for her.

But feelings and destiny have no place here. She can’t think about that. Can’t consider that her place is elsewhere. Kyxia’s role in things have never truly mattered. She didn’t really decide where she went or what she did or who she fought.

Leader did. And before him, it had been Commander Sendak, High Priestess Haggar, and Emperor Zarkon.

She’s not so sure she’s ever had a choice before.

 

They call her Keith.

Currently, she’s hiding amongst terran teenagers. She herself is the same age and even by galran standards she is but a child, but she can’t help but be irritated by them.

Her first month had been peaceful. She had crashed landed near a small town, one on the outskirts of any major cities, and so she was fairly safe, left alone and ignored by most. It had been a fortunate location for she was able to hide herself easy enough once she realized that the people here weren’t at all purple like she was used to.

Mistress Haggar had taught her many things, had opened her body to many possibilities, stretching her mind and abilities to lengths she knows they weren’t originally meant for, but she finds herself once again appreciating the fact that one such ability Haggar had opened for her was shapeshifting.

It’s strange, to not have pointed ears or a tail or even sharp fangs anymore, but she gets by. Her senses aren’t dulled any, as she can still hear and see just as well as she had before, but it’s still odd to have to adjust the way she eats, her teeth no longer as capable as they once were, blunt as they are. With more rounded claws and a lack of an appendage, hunting is a bit harder but she manages with more primal instincts, relying a bit on her mind and traps instead of her speed and strength in which she had been taught to sink her claws into the breathing, heaving chest of some creature.

Hunting didn’t matter at all, of course, once some shop owner had alerted her presence to the authorities. Apparently, a lone teenager was an abnormal thing to see on earth. Especially if they kept returning to the same places for weeks, always alone, and always seen escaping back into the desert that she’s heard was uninhabitable for the others.

After many awkward questions, most of which she either refused to answer or just flat out lied her way through (like her name), she was shoved into the waiting, reluctant hands of a foster home.

Kyxia had never had a roommate before but now she has one, another girl.

It’s strange. The Empire had been mostly composed of men, their tall, broad bodies filling in the ranks quickly. Almost everyone she had ever worked and trained with was male. Leader was a male, her guardian, before she was put under the care of High Priestess Haggar that is, had been male. Commander Sendak, male. All of the druids and scientists she had worked with had been male as were all the common soldiers she had learned and trained and later served with. To suddenly be around another female was a bit disorienting.

She wasn’t quite sure how to act around a terran girl.

Her roommate, Kim the girl had flippantly drawled the first night, was fortunately hardly ever around. It seems that it wasn’t uncommon for the children in the Home to randomly leave, to disappear for hours or even days at a time, and probably return later than expected but return nonetheless. She was pleased to learn this though, as Kyxia herself had no interest in staying there for any length of time longer than was required.

It was summer when she crashed so she doesn’t quite have to deal with schooling yet but she knows it's an inevitable, fast approaching task. She had heard the social worker mention getting her signed up and the annoyance at having to go back to school, something she herself has not only surpassed but is far beyond anything a terran institute could teach her, eats at her. She tries to shove it aside though, shifting her attention to focus on earth customs that she still has to learn.

She knows she’s failing at it though and that she acts far too Galran to be considered normal here. She’s interacted with few humans here and they have all looked at and marked her as strange. No one else seems inclined to test the statement for themselves and she constantly ponders whether that is a good or bad thing.

Humans do not purr when pleased, when they feel warm and comforted. Safe. They do not seek heat like she does, don’t shove their faces into each other’s throats, breathing deeply, when they wish it. They don’t hide their emotions like she tries to either. They are expressive, extremely so, every thought and fleeting feeling seeming to pass across their faces as if to show so much emotion isn’t a vulnerability at all. Their senses and reflexes aren’t honed like hers, triggers poised and cocked, ready to strike at every second. They are relaxed and loose, simply passing through the motions of life as if it’s not possible they could die any second.

Being raised by the empire taught her many things, but she can’t imagine not savoring every second she has, fearing the next minute to come, fighting tooth and nail to keep going.

They are fortunate, she thinks, to live lives so calmly. Secured in their safety as they are.

It’s ironic, really.

Today, she is out of the home once more, threading her way through the busy streets of the town the authorities had placed her in. She thinks the name to be Phoenix. A strange name. There’s nothing renewing about the place. People shove at her and her shoulders ache as she shoves her way past them in turn. Some give her odd looks, as if they don’t expect her to return such aggression back but she can’t bring herself to care.

It’s her first time out in the city. Usually, Kyxia returns to the desert she had first landed in, a good stretch of distance away from her now but something she manages anyway, but she has resolved to associate more. If she is going to live among the terrans, she needs to blend in. First hand experience and practice will help. She hopes.

With so much time suddenly on her hands, as terran teenagers don’t seem to be responsible for much from what she’s observed, she tries to busy herself when the trip to the desert is too much. This time, she goes to the mall, something she is thankfully acquainted with thanks to the many that are strategically placed in the galaxy. Space malls, she can do.

The mall gives her a chance to look at terran clothing and socialization as well as some of their cuisine. She doesn’t really see the appeal of the floppy pizza she bought upon her arrival but she admits, surprisingly, that is tastes half decent. It’s not a traditional galra dish but it’ll do.

Walking through the stores, as she tries to go into every single one, gives her an insight.

The Yankee Candle has her senses filled immediately, causing her to sneeze several times and when it’s clear that she’s not really going to stop, she quickly leaves. She didn’t think she hated anything more than cinnamon now.

The shoe stores are weird. While they’re shaped mostly the same as the shoes she’s used to, there’s few that actually have any spacing for the toes themselves. She’s not sure how they can walk around basically clunking their feet around but to each their own. She herself now sports tightly laced combat boots and while they’re not exactly the same as the boots she wore with the Blade, they’re similar enough to provide a comfort she hadn’t realized she was missing.

The pretzel shop is interesting and she’s not sure she likes the goods they sell there. Pretzels are soft and salty and kinda limp when she holds them. They’re an odd thing for humans to consider a snack and not very filling either. She prefers the pizza.

The clothing stores she enters, as there are many, confuse her. One seems to be entirely for terran women, as it holds clothes that could only hang off of their frames. She also discovers lingerie, which is pretty in theory but impractical as far as she’s concerned. If one wishes to mate why have such a dainty thing in the way when you can simply be bare?

She finds things better suiting her taste at the suppose athletic stores and something called Hot Topic. Wearing what she is, she seems to blend in well with the store that is non stop belting music. It’s kinda dark when she enters but she spends a decent amount of money on ripped black skinny jeans and a leather jacket she happily strokes against her cheek. It contrasts well with the dark red one she wears. Opposed to this store though, she gets an odd look from the cashier at the sporting goods store. Apparently someone like her doesn’t look like they’d be at such a place. She doesn’t care and happily buys athletic clothes that fit her like her Blade suit had.

She spends the whole day at the mall, watching the way people talk to each other. How close and far they stand apart. How they talk with their hands and scrunch up their noses and toss their heads back when they laugh. She watches as they shove tiny sweet cookies into their mouths, not minding the lack of nourishment, and apply paints to their lips with steady hands.

She has a lot to learn from humans and fast.

Kyxia sighs. Earth is proving to be one of her toughest assignments yet.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 

She’s been on earth for three months. It’s approaching her first month at the group home and already she wants to leave.

Kyxia had known that this place wasn’t going to help her, that she would soon be irritated with the confines the adults tried to place on her, but she had never expected to face such things as she did. For some reason, she had expected terrans to be kinder people. She had never met her mother but the reports she had given on the people of this planet were in great contrast to the ones Kyxia herself was meeting. She supposes her mother had only met her father though and it’s obvious where that went.

Still, for such a primitive species, they seem to revel in violence similarly to the Galra.

Her roommate, Kim, was never home and so often she came back with bruised tanned skin and reeking of alcohol, her eyes wide and red and unfocused as she slumps herself down into her bed. Kyxia herself has had drinks before but never enough to send her into such a state and never enough to willingly take such bruises like Kim appears to. She almost always returns with some form of injury but Kyxia has seen her always return to the arms of the boy she knows gives them to her, a cheap cigarette dangling from his smirked lips as if he knows Kyxia wants to scratch his carotid artery out.

The other children living with her are even worse. Many of the boys come home with busted lips and black eyes, some of their pale skins showing them off so easily. Sometimes, when she’s passing them in the halls, they’ll shoulder check her or whisper insults under their breaths that she doesn’t understand. More than one of them have been punched for it though. She’s not sure why they all seem so intent on breaking themselves apart but a small part of her can relate. It wasn’t that long ago that she herself was clawing her way through everyone, spitting and hissing blood everywhere.

She just hadn’t expected humans to have that same drive.

One of the adults overseeing her, Jonathan, was a particular mess. He was less of a hands on man and more like Zyli, spatting words and insults at them whenever he felt the need. She could feel his eyes on her whenever she left the bathroom, hair dripping wet, and she could feel the heat of his glare whenever she defiantly took his rare slaps to the face, snarling at him for even daring to touch her. She was Galra and this puny man was nothing compared to her, even in the form she was in now. It made the withholding of food a bit easier to power through.

The other humans she’s met outside of the home don’t seem to have the same energy around them though. She can feel it, the way their nerves are more relaxed, less poised, and how they don’t raise their hackles at her. They seem content slowly sipping away at strong coffee and strolling along the sidewalk. Some terrans are calm, like the air in the attic of the group home. A bit stuffy and enclosed as they are, but settled nonetheless. They’re a contrast to the angry waves she senses from her housemates.

It confuses her. Terrans are strange.

Though she knows very little about the planet she currently finds herself stationed on, she has done her best, with the limited time and space she has for it, to learn what she can. She has no idea how long she’s going to be here so it’s only in her best interest to learn the terrain, to figure out who it is she’s working with, and somewhat against. If humans are as complex as they seem, it only makes sense to study.

The library near the home proves useful as they have rows upon rows of history not just for Arizona or America, as she’s learned is the country she’s in, but the whole world really. It’s terrifying having such access though.

Kyxia is not unfamiliar with libraries. At the Academy, she was practically living in one, always with her nose in a book, clawed hand stretched out across the flat screen of a tablet. Her guardian had been very strict about her education, expecting nothing but beyond excellence and perfection from her. She had tried her hardest to graduate as soon as possible, to be a kit they could be proud of, and in a way she had succeeded. She had graduated early after all but she thinks there’s nothing she could have done to make Zyli care for her.

But at the Academy and later under the dutiful training of High Priestess Haggar, she had known exactly what to look for. She had strict instructions on what books she was to be reading and to even think about straying from them, to cast her ideas at the fiction section or even the medical section, was immediate cause for demerit. Here though, in this terran library, no one was around to tell her no, to guide her gaze from the line of movies to the history books of World War I. No one was going to scratch her across the face for looking at a book on plant life.

But the fear persisted and she kept her eyes where they were meant to, her mind focused on the pages upon pages of the past. 

She learns that humans are capable of incredible kindness and horrific violence. They seem inclined to have as many wars as often as possible. She doesn’t think there’s ever been a time they’ve all been at peace, constantly picking at some other country or even themselves if they have to. They don’t get along well. The Galra, for all they seethe with rage, have had few civil wars and they almost never lasted long.

But humans are stubborn creatures. They have battled amongst themselves for eons. Currently, she has read reports of a war in Europe, a small one admittedly and fairly contained between two countries, but a war nonetheless. There’s an uprising in another, a country by the name of India. Before them, it had been a multi-front war between several countries in Africa. Everyone seemed to be at everyone’s throats.

She reads of World War II and practically slams the book shut with disgust once she reads of it. This Adolf Hitler is remarkably like Emperor Zarkon and she counts herself lucky, thinks everyone is really, that not only did that man not achieve total domination of the planet but that their societies had been too far behind to travel outside their galaxy. Who knows what that man would have done with aliens. Even though she personally thinks humans are some of the most alien like beings she’s met, by their own standards even.

It’s ironic, she thinks, that for how different they are, terrans are oh so similar to them.

When she was younger, after graduating the Academy but before her evaluation at Central Command, she had been stationed on a desert planet known as Yugalev. She had worked under Commander Ryzit then. It had been her first assignment with the Empire, she remembers. Fresh from the Academy, she had been given a tailored purple uniform and a single blaster and told to keep her mouth shut and not die.

The base on Yugalev had been primarily for science purposes. Ryzit was an intelligent man, one that knew the boundaries and liked to push past them. She had been a guard for one of his labs, always standing at attention at the door, making sure no one entered or left.

She can still hear the screams.

The people of Yugalev were psychic in that they could telepathically speak to each other, sending pictures and waves along with information. It was dangerous, the work Ryzit had been doing. The capture of Yugalev had taken far longer than the Empire had wished, as difficult as it was to kidnap their people without exposing their camps and hideouts. It was hard to hide someone when they knew the way to where they were being kept, even if they were blindfolded. Spies were a problem, early on, but it had been Commander Ryzit that managed to place a hold on the bond, to stop waves from being received by other beings. He had found a way to keep them silent, a way that kept them in constant agony.

She thinks it would be similar to having her tongue cut out, over and over as if it regrew.

By the time Kyxia had been assigned to the planet, it was already under Galra control. But Commander Ryzit continued his experiments, determined to figure out the hive mind these people held and to use it for his own gains, perhaps to incorporate it within the Galra themselves.

It was a bit mad, she thinks. The Yugalev people were born with this ability. It was something even they couldn’t explain. But the Commander was persistent. He pushed his way forward, poking and prodding away at their brains, at their nerves, at the bonds.

It was when he started examining the quintessence that things had begun to become hazy.

She hadn’t been at the door when he first did it. It had been her rare day off but she had heard about it. How the prisoner had screamed and screamed for hours, that the soldiers all the down the hall and even the other prisoners, a level down, could hear them. How when the Commander electrocuted them, a direct line drawing to the quintessence stored within them, they had blood rushing out of their openings, trailing down from their mouths and noses and eyes and even the ears.

He had melted their brain and heart, they said. And when she returned the next day and he started the experiment again, on another poor soul, she could confirm it.

The Nazi doctors of Hitler’s regime remind her of Commander Ryzit and she had never wanted to see that man again. Not after what he had done to them.

To her.

But she read the fortunes of terrans too. How there had been people hiding jewish families in their homes and how people had tried to protect their neighbors and the innocent children caught up in it all. She read of the lives lost, many of them German, of people that had risked everything just for the chance of putting a stop to it all.

It reminded her a little of the Blades.

She stayed at the library for hours, going through several books about various wars. She knew there was more to this planet than the violence of it but in her experience, it was in the rage and instinctual fever of battle that people were most true to themselves. She had been raised in battle, her whole life spent fighting a war. She wanted to know how humans thought and fought. It was what she herself understood the most.

She could learn about the rest later.

  
  


She gets a job when she realizes that she’s going to need money for things. She had brought little gold with her when she came to this planet. Gold that she had pawned for a lot of terran money apparently. She had significantly more than she would need for awhile probably but she wanted to be secure.

Besides, she didn’t trust that someone in the home wouldn’t try to steal it from her.

She gets hired at a diner far from the home as a waitress. The owner of the restaurant says she’s pretty enough to bring in enough tips, that she seems to have a good head on her shoulders.

She wonders what he would say if she told him she had slashed at men’s eyes for calling her pretty before.

She doesn’t say anything though or even tries to be insulted as he passed her a black apron and a notepad.

The diner is old fashioned, painted in bright, patchy reds and filled with black booths. The floor is checkered and the walls are decorated with pictures of old cars and singers she thinks to be long dead. Music plays always, though she has no idea where from, and the pale yellow lighting irritates her eyes. A bar, lined with red and silver stools, is at the front of it all and it’s there she spends most of her time, sliding milkshakes down the row and carrying out trays of french fries and hamburgers.

She gets trained by a terran woman, one who is older than her and with long grey hair that reminds her faintly of Leader. Not that she would ever tell him that, of course. She quite likes living thanks.

The woman, who introduces herself as Helen, smells of faint ash and wild berries. Not terran berries though, oddly enough. She reminds Kyxia of the fruit that grows on Olkarion, the one time she had visited in her youth. Helen is a brash woman, who curses at everything and everyone and practically throws the food at patrons when she takes it to them.

Kyxia has never worked in food service before but she is sure that is not the way to go about it, judging by the scowls and irritated looks people send them.

So when her boss thinks she’s ready, she takes the time to set their drinks down slowly and carefully, not sloshing them over the side like Helen was prone to do. She tries to smile when she greets them, though the movement is odd for her and she thinks she’s grimacing more than anything but they don’t seem to mind if the tips she gets say anything.

The diner isn’t a terrible place to work, save for the random rude assholes that come through and that she always leave smelling faintly of grease and sweat. But she gets paid decently (she thinks) and that’s enough for her.

All of her paychecks are given in cash, per her request, and Kim helped her get a P.O. box that she stores it in. She trusts the girl a little but not enough to keep all of her money in their room, especially since she’s been buying drugs more frequently recently. She’s nice enough when sober though so Kyxia doesn’t say anything. Even if her nose twitches every time she enters their room.

Kim had tried to get her to decorate her side of the room when she started bringing home some money. It’s not like Kyxia needs anything more than her bed and a laundry basket though. But Kim seems offended by her lack of color and personality, even though her side isn’t that much better either. She ignores the attempts to buy posters and pillows and random trinkets though. She has better things to buy.

Like a hoverbike.

Though she’s never actually ridden one before they’re similar enough to the ones the Empire have that she thinks she’ll be okay. Kim’s boyfriend has one and even let her look at it once, when she wasn’t glaring at him that is. She definitely thinks she can handle it and from the books she’s read to get a license, she feels confident enough in her abilities that it won’t be a problem.

A hoverbike would make her trips to the desert significantly easier as well as her walks to work.

So far, her search in the desert hasn’t brought any results. Not once has she picked up a single hint that the Blue Lion is there and she starts to wonder how exact the location reported was. Because she’s sure if Blue was here, that she would have felt something at least. A little twinge maybe. Something. But she hasn’t and it’s been a bit worrying. She had felt the other lions almost immediately upon getting close enough to them and by close she means within relative distance because those planets had been huge and much bigger than Earth.

She sighs, slipping on her work clothes lazily. She will search the desert again tomorrow. 

Tonight, she has old men and silly teenage boys to hustle.

Eyeing the tube of purple lipstick on Kim’s nightstand, she resolves to put in some effort. Besides, it’ll be nice to see purple on her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to write longer chapters but I can't seem to get above what I do without moving everything too fast. It's endlessly frustrating.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2**

 

“Table 7!” David, the cook, calls out as he mockingly pokes at the bell that’s placed on the bar counter. Rolling her eyes, Kyxia shoves her hand over and grabs ahold of the order.

“I’m right here you don’t need to yell.” She tells him, tone a bit quipped. It’s been a busy night, something that doesn’t usually happen as the restaurant is, achingly so, a hole in the wall. She pushes through the rush though, mind briefly occupied with thoughts of her upcoming paycheck.

David smirks at her, a lock of shaggy brown hair falling into his eyes as he does so. “Just wanted to make sure you heard me, Princess.”   
She almost snarls, baring her teeth as she shoots him a glare. “I am no heir.” She turns sharply on her heel, intent on dropping off the food quickly. For a moment, David’s smirk had reminded her of Prince Lotor’s.

She wants to punch it right off his face.

She’s been on earth for almost four months now, time ticking away quickly and yet oh so slowly. The days have gone by in that sluggish, lazy way that summer tends to paint everything with, smudging the lines together with its heat. In Arizona, it’s an amplified feeling.

She starts earthling school tomorrow, Kyxia going in as a junior which is apparently on par for sixteen year old humans. Well, she wasn’t quite sixteen, she amended to herself, placing the food baskets down with a quick smile. She had left the blades shortly after her fifteenth year had cycled over and while it’s been several months, she still has a few to go before her sixteenth marks its way across her officially. If she’s calculated the days right (which she knows she has) then her birthday is but a little over two months away.

She’s not looking forward to school. Last week, Kim had taken her school shopping (for an exchange of money of course as she didn’t want the subpar things the group home was passing on them) and while she had everything she needed, including a simple red backpack that Kyxia had never needed at the Academy, she felt a sense of unease.

She’s never been to a school like this one before.

From what she’s heard, terran schools are much more lax than the galran ones. Which isn’t surprising at all, as she had definitely not expected the teachers to all be armed with blasters and threatening to kill any unruly kits, she had expected something more. Corporal punishment and verbal abuse were common, were expected, at the Academy and the other galra schools offered but earth it seemed, condemned such behavior, saw it as cruel. Unjust.

She wondered how they kept everyone in line.

So she knew there was less aggression, less violence, and that the teachers there were mostly kind, giving out chance after chance. They had rules of course, like how weapons couldn’t be brought in (which was ridiculous. How would they be able to protect themselves?) and how they had to dress a certain way (which was also ridiculopus since a. They weren’t in a military setting so armour wasn’t practical and b. Clothing had no such effect on what her brain was able to process).

Logically, she knew there was little to worry about. She’d pass her classes fairly simply and she didn’t intend on sticking out so it’s not like she’d get in trouble a lot and yet.

And yet the anxiety rifling through her stayed, lingering to be prodded at later.

Because Kyxia wasn’t human and as much as she prided herself on her abilities, there was still the fear that they would just know. That they would see through her, right to the very core of who she had been, back when she was nothing but purple, bleeding gold and weeping ruin.

She goes through the rest of her shift like that, her nerves a little too sharp, too alert, and when the clock finally strikes ten and the last customer is gone and the last chair is stacked up, she breathes a sigh of relief.

It’s David’s night to lock up so she leaves with a halfhearted wave of goodbye, something she’s picked up on by Helen, who typically does it with a lazy flick of her middle finger as she shuts the door behind her. Luckily, Kyxia knew not to do that too, as it was clearly an insult judging by Melanie’s, another, newer waitress, reaction to it every time.

She thanks the stars that she managed to save enough money for a hoverbike, so that now she doesn't have to walk several blocks home. Not that the night bothers her. She can see just as well, if not a bit better than during the day, and she knows she can take any human that would dare to attempt attacking her. But her feet hurt, calves a little swollen and ankles aching, and so she gladly swings her leg over the side and starts the thing up, carefully adjusting the drawstring bag of her things on her back.

She knows she should probably head back, that Jonathan keeps a log of them all and that school is tomorrow and the doors are all going to be locked soon, but she can’t bring herself to care. It’ll be annoying later, when she has to sneak into her room through the window and when she has to deal with Jonathan’s persistent questions in the morning, but for now she ignores it.

She has better things to do.

She heads to the desert, the one she crashed landed in, and ponders her next steps.

Arizona, she’s learned, is a desert state. That there’s more than just the one desert she has already gone through. There is, in fact, four total and they pretty much cover the whole state.

When she first started doing these missions, she had been fearful. For so long, Kyxia’s gift had been a weapon. Something that was used to hurt people, to destroy them. High Priestess Haggar had taught her so much, had pushed and shoved and molded Kyxia to be exactly the way she wanted her to be. She had fought against it of course, had managed to hide the dirty ugly smudges Haggar saw her truly as. She had done so well, had hid so much of herself, that sometimes she forgot who she really was. Sometimes it seemed like the only thing about her that mattered was this gift. This curse.

It had been Antok’s idea to use her gift as a means to find the Voltron lions.

She had found the Red Lion first, of course. Before the Blades even, she had known. She had known what she could do.

But it wasn’t until Antok knew and Antok told Kolivan that she began to actually utilize that gift.

She found the Yellow Lion next.

It had been fairly simple, to track down the bases more heavily guarded cross checked with the records of the previous missions of the Empire. Before, when her mother had been more active in the day to day activities of the Blade, a lower member of the imperial forces, it had been a big deal. With the Red Lion of Voltron, the Empire had been able to hone in on Voltron’s unique quintessence, developing trackers that could scan and read for such energies, such frequencies.

Or at least, scan to the best of their abilities for Voltron was unique and no matter how much exposure they had to Red, they never could get exactly what they wanted.

But they had checked the scout lines anyway and when she started checking out possible leads, with her lone pod that lasted her to the very end (which was, as we all know, Earth), it didn’t take long to come across the Balmera.

And it didn’t take Kolivan long to get a man stationed there, to keep an eye on it.

The Green Lion had been next and significantly harder to find.

Unlike Red and Yellow, the Green Lion had never actually been found so there was nothing that the Empire or Blade’s could give her other than a list of planets that Green was more than likely not at.

So she went through texts, read up on myths and legends.

The Green Lion was the guardian spirit of the forest so she knew to keep her sights on more vegetated planets, ones with vast amount of wildlife and vegetations. Trees were preferred of course but she didn’t limit herself to just one plant, instead looking as far and as deep as she could.

In the end, she had happened upon Green on accident.

She had found her on a remote planet, one untouched by the Galra and with little colonized civilization on it. There was but one tribe active there and it was small and composed of what she knew to be similar to the terran sloths. Only bigger and broader and more active. The planet had been what she thought to be a lost cause. Both the Empire and the Blade had sent members to check and both had reported nothing and yet she knew as soon as her feet first touched the soil that this was the place.

Never before had she felt like one with the grass after all.

She had expected the Blue Lion to be easier. She had the planet’s location after all, something she had neither with Green or Yellow, and she even had rough coordinates. Her mother had found Blue, had stayed here for over a year, protecting it, and yet here she was now, looking at the desert Krolia had given as its location only to soon realize that Blue wasn’t here. Not exactly.

She could feel her a little, the connection weak. Unlike Green, who was Red’s partner and other side, and unlike Yellow, who knew the heat well and was just as warm as Red, Blue was the opposite. She had felt Red so strongly, so thoroughly in her veins, that it made sense for Blue to be the hardest to feel.

Water was Fire’s opposite and so she was blindly waving her hands around, fingers just brushing where she needed to be.

She could feel her though. Could feel the icy brushes against her ankles whenever she tried to sleep, could smell the ocean whenever she walked towards the south side of the city.

When she finally makes it to the center of the desert, she eases the hoverbike down and turns it off, the vibrations keeping her abuzz for several seconds after its gone. There’s nothing around her for several miles, though she can see some kind of hills far in the background. Above her, the moon blinks sluggishly, like it too is exhausted and tired of the search.

She cannot feel Blue here, save for the quiet hum that’s been present since she landed on this planet. She knows, beyond belief now, that the lion is not within this desert.

Despite her lack of reason, she stays in the desert, sticking close to the hoverbike she’s worked so tirelessly to afford. Without having to squint, she can see a coyote, its slim form hanging closeby but not approaching, two predators aware of each other but respecting the space, sharing it. She hopes it stays that way.

Cicadas and various insects infest the night with sound. It’s not exactly peaceful out here but she can feel the life. The desert is full of it, full of creatures that are far stronger and more secure in their roles than perhaps the terrans are.

They, at least, know how to survive their conditions with ease, using nothing but the bodies crafted for them.

Oddly, with no one but the coyote for company, she thinks of Sendak.

When she had first found Red, she had been on Commander Sendak’s ship, sent there to monitor various things by High Priestess Haggar. He had not been pleased by her presence there, not pleased at all by what he saw as Haggar sending someone to keep an eye on him. Which wasn’t false exactly. They all knew Commander Sendak was loyal to the empire, loyal to Zarkon above all, but Haggar was wary of what he was conducting on his ship, suspicious that he was doing things that weren’t asked of him. 

Under Emperor Zarkon’s reign, you did nothing without permission. It didn’t matter if it benefited the Empire or not. If you weren’t tasked with it, were specifically told to be sticking your nose somewhere, you were punished.

When she found Sendak quilty, Haggar had ordered her to stay even longer.

He had not been pleased.

Those added months had given her the time she needed to make connections, one being Ulaz, who helped lead her to where she is now, and the other being Red, who she owed so much to. But they also forged some odd relationship between her and the Commander.

She had always known, long before she had left the Academy, hell long before she even joined the Academy, that who she was, what she was, was deemed as something less in the eyes of most of the Empire.  Zyli had been very outspoken about how he felt about her. Everything about Kyxia had been despicable, something atrocious and dirty and small.

And she was. For a Galra, Kyxia was small. Being an omega didn’t help that for yes, smaller stature were more common amongst them, but now there was a second layer of her identity, another point against her, that people saw.

It had been that bit of her that Sendak favored exposing and exploiting.

Jonathan reminds her a bit of him in that regard.

The coyote tips its head back and howls, the sound echoing all around her and she can feel it warming her bones, kissing the narrow frames of her ears. It's her cue to leave, she knows.

So she swings her leg back over the seat of the hoverbike, bright red converse kicking up a bit of dust as she does so. Tomorrow, when she gets out of the terran school, she will go to the next desert over and start her search anew.

For now, she bids this one goodbye. The coyote howls again in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song I listened to while writing this was Already Gone by Sleeping at Last. I don't think there's much of a connection between it and the chap but *shrug*


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 

The first time Kyxia went to school, she was four.

It was unusual for someone so young to attend the Academy, the most prestigious of the schools the Empire offered to its youth, but her guardian, Zyli, a highly decorated commander for the Empire, stationed near the Zykonian quadrant, had pulled many strings to get her admittance.

She knew her childhood had been odd, even for a child of the Empire. It wasn’t anything new for children to be at the Academy but usually it was for older kits, ones reaching the cusp of maturation. She was nowhere close. She had known, as soon as she entered the Academy, uniform just a tad too big and loose on her tiny, thin frame. Had known when all the other students she saw were taller, broaded, bigger, and meaner.

But she had something they didn’t have.

Zyli had drilled into her head that she was to earn her keep. She had been a gift, Emperor Zarkon had said, to Commander Zyli, a gift in that she was a stolen child, a trophy, from an enemy base, one that was operating under the Empire’s eyes.

She had known her whole life that her parents weren’t loyal to the Empire. She had known, as had everyone else, that she was born to traitors, to spies that betrayed and lied to the Empire. That deserted Emperor Zarkon in their weakness. Zyli had held it against her. Why was she, a halfling whelp of deserters, the only thanks they got? They had killed and bled and almost died in the name of the Empire and she was all they got for it?   
It was his biggest regret. The largest source of his shame.

So, in an effort to make her existence seem less like a disgrace and more like something noble, something to be proud on, he relentlessly made her carry everything.

She had started her training early on, perhaps when she reached three. She could not remember it well, just that by the time she was walking the halls of the Academy, she knew which areas to strike to kill one of them. When she did make it there, her body small and young but strong, she had sharpened her mind. Zyli had taught her the basics of writing and reading and so, while it was difficult, she tried her hardest to be the best cadet there.

She knew what she was signing up for.

Everyone that entered the Academy was immediately enlisted into the ranks. Child soldiers were common, the lesser, more muddied school sending their students off to far outlining planet bases, but the higher up you went, the bigger the position.

When she was nine she graduated, full marks, top of her class, her victory tainted by the golden blood of her fellow peers and the bruises and claw marks lining her arms. The Academy had done it’s hardest to tear her apart, her with her too pale skin and too dim eyes and weak bones. But she had only come out stronger.

They had made her a soldier after all and while many soldiers would die in this war, she had no intentions of being one of them.

It’s been over six years since she last went to school and the terran school is as far as you can get from her previous experience.

The front office lady greets her warmly, a soft intrigued smile on her face when Kyxia gives her her name. She wonders what they’ve heard about her. Can’t be much since all she had given anyone was that she had been alone in the desert for a long while, an orphan to time. They must think her some odd cryptid like creature, feral almost.

The guidance counselor was surely surprised when she passed her placement exams far higher than anything they had to offer her. Rightfully, she shouldn’t even be wasting her time here and yet.

She’s sitting in a lone chair, backpack on her shoulder, feet swinging a little as the slide and squeak against the linoleum flooring. She thinks if she were anyone else that she would have missed the guidance counselor coming back with another student.

But she is not someone else and so Kyxia hears them coming before they even reach the hall several feet from her vision. She can hear their heartbeats and the soft pitter patter of their shoes.

The women, who introduced herself as a Mrs. Dawson, waves her a hello, lips painted red, bright with faux niceness. Kyxia lifts her chin, staring at her in silence, unblinkingly.

“Keith.” Mrs. Dawson greets her again. Kyxia isn’t sure why this woman feels the need to address her. She’s the only one here and Kyxia already knows her name. The woman gestures to the student beside her, who is a thin boy with round glasses and grey eyes. “This is Caleb, who’s going to give you a tour and show you to your classes.”

She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t feel like it’s necessary, merely gives a tight nod when Caleb offers up a shy, awkward wave.

Mrs. Dawson doesn’t seem to mind though as she hands her a little stack of papers. “Here’s a map, in case you get lost during anytime, and then there’s your schedule and a few forms you’ll need to bring back filled out.” Mrs. Dawson pauses and shoots her a guilty look, looking suddenly bashful. “We haven’t had a new student in a bit so don’t be surprised is everyone is a bit excited to meet you. It’ll die down.” It’s not something she wanted to hear but she doesn’t really see a point in remarking about it so she gives a careful careless shrug.

“It’s okay.” She says and with that Mrs. Dawson claps a hand on Caleb’s shoulder before disappearing back into what Kyxia assumes is her office area.

Caleb shoots her another awkward look when she disappears before clearing his throat a bit too loudly. “Okay. So. Yeah, I’m Caleb, also a junior, and we have the same homeroom teacher, Mr. Mathews. Do you, uh, wanna tour the school now?”   
She frowns, head tilting to the side. “Isn’t that what were supposed to be doing?” She asks. Of course she wants a tour. She has no idea where anything is and for someone who has never not once known the exact layout of where she is, it’s very nerve wracking. Already are her hands twitching with the need to scent and clutch her blade (which is strapped to her back tightly. Just in case. No weapons policy be damned).

Caleb’s cheeks burn red, a strange human reaction for embarrassment, one she hopes she hasn’t inherited in her pale form. “Right.” He coughs into his fist before taking a step towards the door, which he opens quietly, motioning for her to go ahead of him.

She’d rather not, as having a stranger given full access to her back is just asking to be murdered (easily so), but this is earth and so she goes on ahead, accepting the polite gesture for what it is.

The school is big she learns. No one else is really in the halls save for the two of them, as classes have already started and all the students are currently in them, obedient little things that they are. She sees few adults as Caleb shows her to the library and the cafeteria, both of which are smaller than what she had access to at the Academy. The Empire hadn’t many schools, but all of them were huge.

He shows her the gym, which she apparently has a physical education class at. Caleb tells her she’ll mostly be doing different sports and running in there, which she thinks is pointless. What’s the point in playing games when they could be teaching them how to fight? How do terrans survive when they’re instincts aren’t even being honed properly?

He shows her to each of her classes to, starting in order so that she can get the quickest and most efficient routes possible. She has calculus first then french and then ap language. After that it’s world history and lunch, followed by advanced physics and topping the day off with p.e..

The calculus and physics class don’t worry her. She’s been doing those numbers since she was a young kit. French class isn’t a worry either. She had long been implanted with a translator and languages come easy to you when you’re from an advanced species that has the habit of overtaking worlds vastly different to it. Her brain is practically wired to take in new information and process it as simply and fast as possible, making it so it's as if she’s been doing it for years.

It’s the english and history classes she worries about.

She’s done enough research at the library to have a fairly decent overlook of things, enough that she seems to be to standard in terms of her human education. But Kyxia hadn’t been raised here and so she feels like an outsider, one who doesn’t quite understand the strange rules with spelling and grammar or who perhaps isn’t as informed as she should be about some major event that took place a little over 100 years ago.

As Caleb leads her to the next class that’ll be starting soon, she hopes she doesn’t look as ignorant as she fears she is.

 

Terran school, Kyxia has decided, sucks.

The teachers are too soft, most of them greeting her with warm grins and questions of “how are you?” Who asks that? Why would they care? Never before has an educator of hers cared about her wellbeing and to suddenly have so many butting their noses into her life is nerve wracking. She wonders if they’re trying to gain information on her like she is of them.

The children are even stranger. So many give her odd looks, as if there’s something strange about her. Kyxia had checked the bathroom mirror during lunch and she knows for a fact that none of her skin or hair is purple so it can’t be that. They cannot tell she is alien, that she is something beyond their planet, and yet they eye her suspiciously, as if she is wracked with something crazed and terrifying.

She asks Kim about it later, when they are in the (marginal) comfort of their room, and according to her Kyxia dresses strangely, like some kind of punk rock individual sought on rebellion.

She does not understand this reference. Kyxia dresses as closely as she could to her Blade outfit and yet this is odd.

Terrans are odd, she decides once again. The belief is cementing itself into her mind.

She makes no friends the first day, not that she is either surprised or caring of. No one sits with her at lunch or partners up with her in classes but she doesn’t mind. At the Academy, everything was done alone. If you could not perform a task by yourself, you were not knowledgeable enough and ignorance was not tolerated in the Empire.

Ignorance got you killed and as much as they preached victory or death, no one wanted an unknowledgeable person working for them. It is a disease upon the body. A virus within their ranks.

Funny enough, she supposes she became that anyway. Being a spy and all.

The classes themselves are odd too. She is aware it’s the first day and that things will surely pick up but going over the syllabi she’s been given, she doesn’t have much hope. It reminds her how far behind the earth really is in terms of knowledge and ability. They are oh so primitive and she pities them for it.

They have the ability, the brain power to be so much more, and yet it is just at the tip of their fingertips.

She thinks they’re not reaching out far enough yet, not aware of how capable they truly are.

How little the impossible really is.

When the school bell finally rings, she takes off quickly, faster than many of her peers, who are walking quickly too in the eagerness to get out of there. She had rode her bike to school and so she slips her helmet out of her bag and slides it right on, ignoring the awed and impressed looks she gets as she throws her leg over and starts the bike up. Already she can feel the wind rushing against her exposed cheeks.

The streets are busy for several miles, packed with cars and people going home, but they soon empty and thin out as she gets closer and closer to the heart of the desert.

It’s a new one this time, one that she has only visited once. She has foregone the initial landing site, as she has officially declared it empty of Blue, and so now she searches this one. Leaving the bike near a giant cluster of rocks, she adjusts her shorts and hiking boots, which she had brought with her to school to switch with the combat boots she favors.

This desert feels hotter than the last one and her skin burns with it. She is incapable of getting sunburnt, her galran genes knowing temperatures far higher than the ones she’s currently being exposed to, but she can feel it nonetheless. Her body is not, after all, free of feeling. Sweat slides lazily down her neck as she walks, ears trained to listen, to hear.

She cannot feel Blue yet, save for the soft brush against her own innate quintessence, but she doesn’t expect much. Unlike Green and Yellow, who were surrounded by their elements, Blue has enclosed themselves in the opposite, and so she doesn’t think she will immediately be alerted to their presence. She will have to be much closer to them to feel them this time, as the desert cloaks them.

It’s a smart move, she acknowledges. One she is absolutely sure the lion is aware of.

When she had been stationed with Sendak, she had been close to Red always. Could always feel the heat and feeling of fire within her. Red had been loud and vibrant, a sun that brought all attention to herself only to blind anyone that looked too long. She did not work directly with the lion of course. Red was mostly guarded now after all, the Empire having gotten what they wanted several decaphoebs ago. High Priestess Haggar and her druids had already studied it, the scientists had already examined it, and so there was really nothing to learn.

The only one that truly visited the lion with intentions of gaining something was Commander Sendak, who was convinced he could get the lion to open up to him. Him, who was gifted the lion by Emperor Zarkon himself. Sendak, was so sure of his place as right hand man, that there was no way Red wouldn’t submit to him eventually.

But Kyxia had known better.

She had felt the quintessence as soon as she boarded his ship. Red was not Sendak’s.

She was no ones.

She had not allowed herself to think of Red since leaving the Empire. It has been many decaphoebes, years, since she had last seen Red, last felt her in her head. Her departure from the Empire had been very rushed, had felt so sudden, and her goodbye had been short, one that was more of “I’ll be back one day I’m sorry” than a “I will never forget you”. She hadn’t even gone to see her as she ran, her heart beating too fast as soldiers chased her with blasters. It’s not any fault of her own, she knows, but a part of her can’t help but feel guilty for it. Red had been her only companion there and Kyxia had been the same for her. To have that connection abruptly lost . . . .

She thinks Red would have liked the deserts here. She knows she herself feels right at home.

Above her, a vulture flies in the sky, swooping in wide circles. She can feel the heat of the ground below her feet and she aches to take off her shoes, to dig her toes and claws into it and just feel. Yellow isn’t here to make her really feel but she wants it all the same.

She isn’t sure this body could handle such an exposure though, if she’s honest. There’s so much different about her this way.

It had been a shock, the first time she had changed. Changing was always an experience for her, as Kyxia had never really felt so at ease in her own skin. When she was younger, untrained as she was, she was constantly shifting, her skin staying purple always but her hair shifting between muted purples and bright pinks to flat blacks and even a pale white once. Some days she would wake up with marks on her skin, purple bold stripes going down her back, her arm, her legs, whatever. It hadn’t really settled itself until she was older, when Haggar had exposed her body enough to make the shifts purposeful. To make her in charge of them.

She had spent most of her time as fully Galra as she could get. Her eyes were never quite right, the pupils and scalia being too obvious, but she could at least get the yellow tint, claws, and dull purple hair.

On Earth though she had none of that. Her eyes were white and purple like everyone else’s, like they had been when she younger. And her skin was pale, like the first human’s she had seen had been. Her hair was black, long and with bangs that tickled her nose. She was pretty, from an objective standpoint. But oh so different than from before.

She felt exposed like this. Worse she felt weak.

She looked so much like she did when she was a kit. She hated that feeling.

The desert, as if it can feel her growing unease, seems to get hotter in response and with a tired sigh, she considers stopping now. She’s walked several miles so far and felt nothing. Perhaps she should just mark her place and continue the search for another day, one that doesn’t have her upheaving herself.

A longing enters her at the thought and so with marginal resistance she turns back, rolling her foot once to relieve some tension.

She wants to go back to her bed and curl into it, like she does when nesting, something she hasn’t done yet since landing on earth. If she is going to look like Kyxia as a kit, she is going to act like it.

She will find the lion soon but today, Blue can wait.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 

“Oh that emo kid?” She heard while she was walking down the hall, eyes purposely kept forward. “That’s Keith.”

She hears movement, like shoes squeaking against the tiled floors. “Keith?” She hears.

She’s used to this reaction. The first kid snorts. “Yeah. I know. She’s just as weird for it too.”

She can’t see them, as their behind her, walking a good few pairs of students behind. The hall isn’t that crowded but she has to hone her senses it so as not to overwhelm them. Luckily, she isn’t a young kit anymore and the shift doesn’t cause her any pain. She thinks the second voice nods.

“Nice ass though.” Ah. They are closer than they though then. The other boy makes a sound of agreement and before he can respond she trains her ears to ignore them, to focus on something else.

She catches the tail ends a few notes of music coming from the earbuds of the girl in front of her before moving onto the general buzz of the hall, letting the walls fall down for a moment.

Terran schools are loud, much louder than the Academy. Here, everyone freely talks, and loudly not in any of the hushed tones she’s used to. They all speak as loudly as Thace does when he’s particularly excited. Or inebriated. The Galran, as harsh as their vocal cords tend to make them, are usually soft spoken. Some are louder than others of course. She’s found Commanders in particular are definitely so, exerting their Alpha dominance as much as they can. She supposes if she couldn’t get her word across with her body alone though she might have to force them in line to but Kyxia is, undeniably, not so weak. Most Galra though are quieter, knowing how sensitive the ears can be that it’s just common courtesy to speak at lower, normal levels.

Humans do not have this foresight. She suspects they cannot hear nearly as well as she had once thought. Which is more than a little concerning as she was already fearful of their instinctual senses.

Humans are not just louder though, as she’s found everyone seems to scream and talk and move as loudly as they can with no sense of stealth. They’re brighter too, the harsh colors irritating to her eyes. Take the walls at the school for instance. They’re mostly painted a dull shade of blue (thank the stars) but the posters plastered all across them are uncomfortably bright. Neon yellows and oranges and pinks, soft reds and humming oranges. They grate at her, like a nat that keeps flying around her eyes only for her to swat away. A constant headache.

They dress just as colorfully. Unlike the Galra, who dress always in darker colors, like muted purples and flat greys, with the occasional addition of a gentle pink or standard black, humans seem to thrive in creativity. Just by glancing at the people around her she gets a good glance at the whole color spectrum. They seem to breathe it as often as they can, as if to not show it would be a crime, painful even.

They seem to think her odd for wearing mostly blacks but it’s not her fault she finds the garnish yellow of the school’s colors so revolting. Her eyes are itching every time she even glances at it and she’s constantly holding herself back from reaching up to press the heels of her hands into the eye sockets.

“-going to the football game tonight?” she hears, trying to move quickly around a gaggle of girls.

“Nah, my mom sa-”

Terran school isn’t all that bad, she considers. Sure, they’re not really teaching her anything and pretty much every aspect of their existence grates on her nerves, but the children are harmless, the adults even more so, and she doesn’t find herself having to stab anyone for looking at her long.

All in all, she labels it a success.

 

Kyxia is rethinking that fact about an hour later though, when some boy from her history class is following her down the halls, rambling in her ear as if she cares enough to listen.

Despite herself, Kyxia was raised with some manners so she flicks her eyes to look at him.

It’s the boy that sits two rows behind her, who always has a hat atop his head despite the dress code explicitly saying those aren’t allowed. He has one eyes slightly lower than the other but it’s marginal so she supposes she’s the only one that really notices it. She thinks everyone can tell his pants are just a tad too big for him though.

“Who doesn’t know what the Battle of Marshetta was about?” He quips and she realizes he is calling her stupid. Kyxia knows she is lacking in some areas of terran history and one instance was just proven in her previous class, when the teacher was discussing the third world war and asked Kyxia about Marshetta. Apparently, if this kid and the teacher are to be believed, it’s mostly common knowledge having been one of the greatest massacres in this country’s lifespan.

The boy continues to ramble on but she ignores him. She needs to study more, she supposes. If some foolish boy thinks she is unintelligent about something than she is definitely lacking in the basics of human knowledge. Kyxia wants to never be considered ignorant on a primitive planet of all places.

Apparently, the boy has said something notable for he shoves her shoulder, practically yelling in her ear the next second. “Hey, freak, are you even listening to me?”   
“No.” She replies because she’s not. Why does everyone assume that just because you are talking near them means that you are listening? She could care less what any of these children have to say. She does, however, not appreciate this one touching her. She can feel the spot where he had burning, her ear ringing a little.

If he were Galran she would have shoved him up against a wall, knife at his throat, by now. As it is, she calms herself and forces her arms to stay clutching her books.

He doesn’t like her response though and shoves at her shoulder again. The ringing intensifies.

He says something else but whatever it is, she cares not. She interrupts him, growling a little as she glares through her bangs. “Touch me again, boy, and I’ll snap your neck.”

It is with slow, mindful stupidity that he brings up his hand and pokes at her chest, right above her collarbone.

Well, she thinks as she drops her books straight to the floor, fist already formed, she warned him.

 

At the Academy, fights were common. Galra are an emotional species, full of energy and quick to anger. It takes a lot of training, of meditating and wearing the body out, for them to truly calm down. With the Empire, it was encouraged. Emotions like rage and triumph and guilt made them good soldiers, ones full of fire and violence. With the Blades though, she learned to harness it even more, watching as Antok meditated for hours while Kolivan went away at training dummies. 

Before though, had been the Academy. As kits, they had all been high strung, all full of loose strings and nerves and muscles that hadn’t yet been trained, been put into submission, and so it wasn’t any surprise for anyone when someone would get their arm twisted so far back it would snap or another with throw a kid too hard his neck broke.

She herself had sent many kids to the infirmary, had been on the receiving end of way too many bruises and cuts. Many of the smaller scars she had came from such tiny claws.

At this terran school though, with two adults pearing at her behind a desk, she gets the impression that this is not something they typically deal with. There had been a bit of panic, she remembers, when she first punched the boy, who is currently nursing many of his own bruises in the nurse's office.

She herself sits unaffected, though a bit annoyed.

“This kind of behavior is unacceptable, Miss Kogane.” One of the adults tells her. The principal, Mr. Conway, she believes he is, though there is no name tag. What a wasteful thing to do, she thinks. Why send her to such an important man when he has better things to do than wrangling in fiesty kits? At the Academy, an adult never talked to them, never even separated the fights. They were always to end and leave them on their own terms.

She says nothing as he stares at her, waiting for a response. Why do terrans always want a response to comments that don’t require continuing?

She eyes the other adult, the guidance counselor, who is standing behind the man’s shoulder. A united front. How flimsy.

If one cannot stand on their own, they should not be standing at all, she remembers learning. Mr. Conway would make a terrible commander.

“You will apologize to Mr. Stevens-” He goes on but she interrupts.

“No.”

They both seem equally taken aback. “I’m sorry?” For what, she wonders.

“I’m not apologizing.” She repeats when they continue to just blink at her. “I told him to stop touching me. He did not. I am not sorry for getting him off of me.”   
“You punched a boy several times-” Mr. Conway starts up, looking a bit insulted, as if she had attacked him personally.

“I punched a young man several times.” She corrects, for the difference seems important. “He touched me several times. It seemed appropriate.”

“App-ro-pri-ate.” The guidance counselor stutters out, her mouth making out the syllables obnoxiously so.

She nods curtly, once, satisfied.

They don’t seem to know what to do with her and after she refuses yet again to give an apology they send her on her way, telling her they’re calling home and she is to serve detention.

Home, she thinks bitterly as she walks out. She has no home here.

 

She does not go to detention when the final bell rings. As far as she is concerned, she has done nothing wrong and so will not serve this punishment. She wonders what Stevens was.

_ Nothing, _ a part of her brain says. The part that speaks in snarls and bared teeth and too sweet scents of omega.

Never before has she fought someone and an adult tell her to stand down. It’s an odd experience. Why would she not hit him? Not get him off? Do terrans just let everyone hurt them and walk all over them?

Well. She may not be fully galran but she is not human enough either it seems.

Instead of going where she should, she detours to the desert. She weaves through the street easily, ignoring the few calls and curses she gets for it.

Before earth, before the Blades, she had always been Kyxia.

Kyxia of starlight the books said. That’s what her name means, which she finds oh so appropriate. Of course her mother would name her that, when she herself came from the stars to a planet that couldn’t even imagine them.

She had never felt at home up there though. Never has she belonged, no matter where she goes.

She doesn’t remember living on the Blade base, before the attack that came and wrenched her away to the too tight claws of the Empire. But she does remember the early days of living with Commander Zyli, remembers the contempt and hatred that lasted for many decaphoebs, well into her maturity, and far past her inevitable departure from the nest.

She had never loved Zyli, had never called him father or papa or stars forbid dad. He had always been Commander or Sir. Their nest, if she can even call it that, had always been cold. There were never any pictures of them or her alone. Never any records or awards up that she herself earned. Even when she graduated the Academy, all of her teachers speaking praise, he had merely given her the side eye and a tense nod.

There was no love lost between him and when the day came that they met, when she was running from the last base she would ever work on, it had been with no remorse that she slit his throat, eyes bright and yellow, fangs bared.

When she had gone to live with the Blades, her hands too hot and too red, she had felt lost. She had been young still, her body just then entering her first physical galra shift (puberty, she’s learned the humans call it), but her mind had been older.

She had killed more people than some of the members she had started to live with. It was disheartening even more so to look at a few that she herself had seen captured. That she herself had looked into their minds and found nothing but lies and secrets.

They had welcomed her, cold exterior and feral words and all. But the loneliness, the “you don’t belong here”, had persisted and by the time she left them too, her heart had still felt that pull. It had still told her wasn’t really leaving anything behind.

She misses Antok though.

The desert welcomes her, arid thick air suffocating her comfortingly so. She was born in the desert, a child of heat and seclusion. She had lived her first phoebe here, lost among the stars and the dirt, her little hands reaching toward the Blue Lion. Her mother’s reports had been sparse and lacked much but she knew that she had spent her first year here, that their little family had watched over Blue for as long as they could.

She wonders idly if that is why she could feel Blue, despite the currents running against them. After all, Kyxia was nowhere near like the water.

Red had proven that.

When she parks the bike, a dust cloud surrounding her in her haste and abrupt stop, she cannot sense their connection any stronger than any previous visits, to this desert or the one before it. Already, her mind tells her to look elsewhere, to move on to places more likely. There’s only two other deserts left after all and while she hasn’t explored the entirety of this one yet, she knows it’s a lost cause.

Still, she cannot bring herself to part yet. This desert, though empty of her true goal, has brought her some bit of comfort.

She almost feels like she belongs here, amongst the rabid creatures that stalk the night and day, their shells hard, their senses sharp, and their very beings tough. They’re a lot alike, she thinks.

She too fights to survive after all. Against all the odds.

The sun is still out, bearing down on her and the rest of the landscape with an unapologetic glare that could make them all wither away. She wonders how long it has before it explodes, before this sun dies out and takes out every planet nearby with it. As is the fate of all worlds that depend too much on the lifespan of a star.

She doesn’t know how long she lingers in the desert, her barely clothed feet dragging against the ground in slow, lazy, but steady steps. She walks and walks, following the paths she’s marked before, her nose trained and tracing every gap. Hours pass, the sun getting lower and lower in the sky until it too leaves, blinking away with not even a wave.

Everyone leaves, she knows, but it feels like a betrayal to see her go, even if the moon comes up for her.

She has never met her mother. Her real mother, Krolia. She knows her handwriting, the thin sharp letters that have permanently etched themselves in the early paper copies the Blade’s had kept. She knows her Blade, the one she had carried before Kyxia was born, the one left behind for Kyxia to pick up when she returned home. If she ever did. But she does not know Krolia’s face or her scent. Does not know the sound of her voice or how her fingers feel against Kyxia’s painted cheeks.

Even when she became a Blade and files were accessible to her and Kolivan trusted her with words and secrets, she does not know where Krolia even is.

She wonders if they can see the same moon right now, as impossible as it is.

Maybe, she thinks, chest panging a little more than she is willing to acknowledge, they are looking at the sky together. Somewhere.

  
  


When she returns home, covered in sweat and dirt and her skin grimy with sand, she can feel the inevitable rage before she sees it. The home is quiet, it’s inhabitants either asleep or gone again already but Jonathan is not, his scent heavy and hot upon her entrance.

She shuts the door behind her, careful to not jostle her bookbag too much, and she takes another delicate sniff. He has opened a beer recently, the faint whispers of cheap beer reaching her.

She keeps walking, her feet taking her up the stairs and to her room with ease. Kim is not in tonight and she doesn’t know if it’s relief that floods her or not but either way she drops the bag to the floor, letting it fall with a thud. A pencil rolls out the side and she dismisses it.

Throwing herself onto her bed, she inhales the faint odors there. There’s Kim’s perfume, a pungent flower thing that Kyxia herself thinks is more synthetic than realistic. She catches her own scent, something uniquely her own that has no actual description to her other than just Kyxia. There’s cinnamon too, as she had dropped some all over her sheets the other day when examining it.

Terra was full of so many flavors.

She closes her eyes, taking another inhale of the scents in before listening for noises. She cannot hear the tell tell creak of the third step down on the staircase nor can she hear the limp shuffle of feet against the kitchen floor.

Jonathan, though awake, will not be visiting her tonight.

She’s grateful. She would rather not deal with his outbursts of misplaced “guardianship” tonight. The man couldn’t care less if she receives detention and they all know it.

The first time Kyxia had gotten into a fight at the Academy, she had gone home right on time, her nose still bleeding slowly from where a beta boy had punched her. Zyli had not yelled at her for causing trouble, had not offered to clean up her nose for her.

He had merely looked at her, yellow eyes unwavering, and given her a nod.

It was the first time she ever saw his approval and to think it had been for punching that beta boy back so hard that it had given him a concussion.

Because Kyxia may have a bloody nose but she had most definitely been the victor of that one.

It’s another way she’s noticed how vastly different the terrans are to the galran and she wonders what it would have been like growing up here, if she’d have punched a boy like that here too.

Thinking to the faces of the adults from earlier and how her skin had tingled, she thinks so. And she thinks perhaps the Empire was more suited to deal with her than earth ever was.

She’s not sure how to feel about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's kinda oddly paced? Idk how to feel about it.  
> I'm considering making the chapters longer like a combining of two chapters at this pace to make it go by faster for you guys. I have them all outlined and at the current rate we have Shiro coming in ch 12. If I did the merge though shiro would come in in ch 9 (i think). Tell me if you have a preference pacing wise: merge or keep the same? I'm fine with both but maybe it's going too slow? I can't really tell haha.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 

When Kyxia wakes up the next morning, the first thing she hears is the clink-clank of dishes being put up. The first thing she sees is the autumn leaves outside her window, the greens just starting to fade into the beautiful reds, oranges, yellows, and brown she had read about.

She’s sweating a little, cheeks a bit warm and arms feeling kind of clammy. Beneath her is soft fabric, the cotton bedspread of her sheets warming her as she’s managed to wrap herself in a cocoon. Not surprising really. Her galra instincts have heightened recently, relentlessly pushing out past the shell she’s trying to project. Yesterday it had been her senses that spiked, today it seemed were her actions.

Her face is barely peeking out from the folds, eyes casting a half hearted glare at the brightly lit window, but the rest of her is covered. She thinks if Antok were here he would laugh at her. Right before insisting she move over for him to come lay in the nest too.

For that’s what she’s made, she realizes. A nest. She shimmies her head out a little to get a better look and sure enough she has somehow managed to gather an assortment of blankets and pillows that she doesn’t even remember buying. But they’re here and she can smell the faint odors of both the store and herself on them. The only thing she’s sure isn’t hers is the light pink sweater near the base of the bed and that’s Kim’s.

She is going into heat.

It has been many phoebes since her last heat. She knows it was bound to happen at some point and that considering she was stationed on earth for a relatively long time, it was going to have to happen here, but she’s still surprised by it’s appearance nonetheless.

Kyxia had never been fond of her heats. She had presented as an omega at the age of nine, a whole year earlier than most of her galran peers, right at the edge of her graduation from the Academy and it had been both a shock and not one at all to everyone that knew her. Which, to be fair, was hardly anyone really.

When she had first awoken that night, six months into her ninth passing, her body sweaty and hot and fragile, she had felt fear. Because to be a hybrid, a halfling freak, was one thing, but to be an omega female too?

It was a surrender.

For as long as the galra have been around, there have been secondary sexes, ones defined not by genitals but by the creature lurking at the base of their minds. She had read about human myths and she akins the galran subsex to be similar to werewolves in that their mind isn’t quite their own.

She had not handled that first heat well, waking up ill, a freshly identified omega, a rare sight in the Empire these days, and Zyli had looked at her in disgust, shoving her out the door and straight to school as if he didn’t know the more mature kits wouldn’t be able to control themselves properly.

She had almost killed one of them, she remembers, and she had a half formed bite mark on her ankle to show for it. He had a scar on his face though so she supposes they’re even.

Omegas were rare in the Empire and treated lowly for it. Zarkon didn’t want pack omegas, he wanted strong, capable alphas or level headed, smart betas. Emotional, fierce omegas often caused problems. They pushed the line too much, didn’t care much for orders but rather what they themselves wanted. They were too independent, she thinks. Omegas may have been born from a need to please and breed, but they weren’t submissive. They were the guardians of the nest after all, the leaders behind the sheets alpha’s tried to raise so high.

They took orders from no one. Especially when pack was concerned.

She didn’t care much for Zyli’s contempt or her peers leering and taunts. But her first heat had been so painful for it all. She had to not only fight off strange, feral boys with loose grasps on their alpha minds, but had to fight her own body too. She had to make her feet and legs move when they had just wanted to drop. Had to make her eyes stay focused on her lesson when they kept lowering and drifting to imaginary lands far away.

All the while slick began to coat her thighs.

But the first heat hadn’t been her worst because while she may have presented as an omega, her body wasn’t ready for such responsibilities. She may be able to produce slick and her pheromones may have started to release, but she wasn’t yet capable of bearing children nor was she experiencing the lustful, carnal urges most tossed onto omegas in heat.

At least, not until she was thirteen and by then, she had managed to escape to the Blade’s. Not before Sendak had smelt it on her though.

She tries not to think of her first real, full heat. Even if it could have gone a lot worse than it did.

At the Blade base, no one had treated her any differently for her status. They did not care that she was an omega. They knew her to be a strong capable fighter, full of wit and loyalty, and that was enough for them. It helped that she had Antok with her, an older male omega that took her in under his wing.

She would forever be grateful to him and alone in her bed as she was, surrounded by blankets that smelt too new, too other, she let a whine catch in her throat. She wanted her pack.

But pack was not here. Here there was no one but her.

She had always been Kyxia first. Before Blade, before omega, before empire soldier. She had been Kyxia.

She repeated that thought when a cramp settled it’s way in, shaking her legs and biting at her abdomen. She thanked her lucky stars that she had been on suppressants long and that it would take a couple more months for her heat cycles to settle down enough to happen normally, as tri-monthly as they should.

She dreaded the idea of it even now but, for now, she only had to deal with it this week. She could worry about when the next one would randomly pop up later.

She tugs the blankets closer, dipping her head back into the folds to take a deep inhale of her scent. Today, she catches a slight hint of mint toothpaste and it makes her smile before grimacing.

She will have to get up and ready soon. She has work today.

At least it’s a Saturday though. She doesn’t think she’d be able to handle any terran teens like she is now.

It’s not particularly wise to go to work during a heat, but Kyxia supposes the risks aren’t as heavy here as they are with the Empire. Here, no human can smell her. They can’t tell that she’s entered her prime fertile season. None of them will look at her for it, not any more than they already do anyway. And while the hot flashes and constant pain isn’t going to be fun or easy to deal with, she doesn’t have a decent excuse to skip out. At least all she has to deal with is work, rather than the brutal takeover of a planet.

Terran women deal with menstrual cycles every phoebe. She can do this.

She doesn’t have work until 2, so she takes her time dragging herself out of her nest. Every part of her is screaming to get back in, to just stay a little longer, but she ignores those urges, those instincts, and drags her feet to her closet to shove on a pair of ripped black skinny jeans and an army green crop hoodie. She puts on her socks and black converse too when she realizes a trip to the store is a must and once she slides the fingerless gloves she bought on, she feels ready enough to tackle her face.

Terrans are amazing in that they actually have stuff for her skin here. Growing up, she was surrounded by products for scales and fur but Kyxia had neither of those, her skin smooth and soft. But earth was suited just for that and so its with a trill that she cleans her face, exfoliating it and deep cleansing it. With the amount of exercise she gets, it’s always been a must to be thorough. 

Her hair goes up in a messy ponytail, bangs falling in her face like usual, and before she can talk herself out of it, she’s out the door and walking down the street to the nearest convenience store. She ignores the shout of her name as she walks, thinking instead of what all she’s going to buy.

The store she walks into is fairly large, for a convenience store. It’s marked red and has a lot of useless signs for things that are already priced, below. She gives a nod when the sole cashier greets her and grabs a basket by the door before aimlessly walking around.

She’s never actually been in this specific store so she walks around for a bit, just going down the aisles. She ends up in the cosmetics section first and impulsively grabs another tube of dark lipstick to toss in her basket. She also grabs some eyeliner, as Kim seems to think it’s something she needs.

As she walks the aisle full of soaps and shampoos, another employee comes to stock the shelves and for a second, fear strikes her at the man’s built but she waves it off. He is not an alpha. He isn’t even a beta. Though she supposes if humans were to be classified as anything it would be beats all around. She passes the medicine aisle as she makes her way to the other end of the store and swipes a bottle of midol.

When she finally finds herself in the food section, she feels the sudden urge to buy everything. Instead, she limits herself and just grabs several small bags of different chips and multipacks of candy. She also grabs a loaf of bread and some granola bars because she really likes carbs. The frozen food section is small but she manages to find a small pint of chocolate ice cream and surprisingly a vegan pizza. She grabs both and heads to the register, picking up a bottle of coke on her way there.

The cashier is pretty, she notes when the girl smiles at her as she sets her basket down. With honey blonde hair and big brown eyes, she’s the picture of warmth. She reminds Kyxia of the caramel chocolate bar the girl is currently tossing in a bag.

When she gets to the vegan pizza, she pauses, lifting a brow and flipping the box over so Kyxia can see the cover too. “This any good?”

She eagerly nods, suddenly excited to talk all about this pizza and the amazingness she has discovered of earth’s vegan food options. “It’s my favorite.”

“Yeah?” The girl, she shoots a look down and reads the nametag where Laura is written in thin black letters. “I bought one the other day but haven’t made it yet.”

Kyxia smiles. “It’s a different taste than regular cheese but I honestly prefer it.” And she does. It had been a shock to her, to discover terra had vegan humans. She’s been to planets that have herbivore diets but earth is unique in that humans can easily choose their diets, being able to survive on just plants or meats and plants too if they wish. She had not expected to like the vegan pizza when she tried it with Kim, seeing as how galrans were mostly carnivorous. But she had and well she never really bought any other pizza now. Unless it was the super sticky, messy kind because that was even better.

Laura smiles at her, her eyes soft, and she feels a blush creeping its way across her cheeks. Kyxia hasn’t flirted much before. With the Blades, she was easily the youngest member there but there had been the brief meetings with another Blade’s son, Regris . . . . With the Empire, there had been few people she didn’t detest. Fondly, she remembers Acxa, one of her peers, and Rahul, a beta boy from her last engineering class. There had been a few others, in between them all, but they had been more innocent and fleeting. There had also been Sky, an Olkari girl she met when visiting the planet and that had been an experience, mostly tinged with rebellion and secret, that she thinks about with amusement.

But those are all in the past and while she’s not entirely familiar with earth’s courtship ways, she gets the odd feeling the girl is flirting with her. And she can’t say that she minds.

They chat a little more, Laura scanning her stuff at a slower pace (not than anyone minds since Kyxia is the sole customer here) and she can’t tell you what they discuss, mostly because when she looks back later she remembers the exact shade of Laura’s hair more than anything.

When the last item is put in the bag though and Kyxia has paid, Laura quiets and slides her receipt over. “Enjoy your pizza.”   
She grins. “You too! You’ll have to tell me if you like it.”   
Laura flushes a little, eyes darting down to the receipt as Kyxia takes it and holds in in her hand. “Sure.”   
It isn’t until later, as she’s dumping out her various candy bars, that she sees the thinly written phone number under her total, marked with a sideways smiley face.

Suddenly she is a little warmer and this time, it’s not just her heat.

 

Work is a disaster.

The whole night was busy (of course it was) and so she is sweating far more than she should, her heat mixed with the sudden rushing around not helping her very much. She wipes the back of her hand across her forehead again when she gets the chance and David slides her a free coke over. She sends him a grateful look before gulping it down in practically one gulp.

“Rough night?” He asks, giving a nod towards the dining section where she has two families sitting, both with loud, messy little kids. It’s slowed down a lot, thankfully, and she takes another sip of her drink before answering him, sliding the empty cup over for a refill. He does without comment.

“Very much so.” She didn’t like David at first. He was too crass and at times, vaguely rude, reminding her a bit of Lotor with his mannerisms, but as she’s worked here longer, she’s begun to warm up to him. David is nothing like Lotor, at all, and she thinks if Lotor ever knew of her comparison he would be greatly offended.

After all, Lotor never drinks a cup of ketchup in a dare. And he definitely doesn’t lick up a thing of mashed potatoes on the floor when Helen bets him $5 that he won’t.

They’ve developed an odd relationship, her and David, mostly composed of them bitching about the people that come in here, customers and employees alike. Out of all of her coworkers, he’s the only one she can somewhat stand. Helen is manageable but she would never sit with the woman and have a drink.

“Should’ve been here earlier. There was an old lady that came in asking for hot chocolate. Said she should get it for free when I told her we didn’t have any. Like, lady, what did I just say?”   
Kyxia snorts because that sounds exactly like something that would happen here. She’s found, working in the field that she does, that many humans aren’t exactly the brightest, especially when it comes to customer service.

David leans over the bar, handing her her drink again. She plops a straw in with a happy splash and is slowly slurping it when he shoots her a cocky grin. “I did get the number of a pretty girl though. You remember Cara?”   
Ah. Cara. Of course she did. Cara was a regular, one of the university students that always came in here at least twice a week, always alone, and ate the same thing every time she came. Kyxia didn’t even have to ask her for her order anymore and the girl seemed wholefully pleased that she didn’t have to do much social interaction now. Kyxia nods.

“Well, I figured one of us should actually talk to her for once, since she’s literally always here, and I don’t know she’s like super interesting?” The way he says it is a little discouraging but she knows he doesn’t mean it as an insult so she nods to encourage him to keep talking. “Did you know she’s a political science major? And that she’s the president of the drama club?”   
She had not and to be honest, hadn’t expected either things of the quiet reclusive girl that comes over. She had been guessing standard english major, especially since the girl was always reading on her phone.

“Well yeah she is. And the ballsy little thing actually left her number on a napkin for me like dear god did you see that coming because I sure as fuck didn’t?”   
She shakes her head because she really didn’t. Feeling brazen, she leans over the bar too and gives him a quiet little smirk. “You know I got a number today too.”   
He grins and slaps a hand on the bar. “Shut up! No way! Who? When? What the fuck.”

She blushes a little, suddenly shy, something she doesn’t really ever feel. “Went to the store this morning. The cashier gave me her number.”   
He arches a brow, looking curious. “Her?”   
She tenses a little, not sure what to expect, and gives a tight nod.

“You a lesbian then, huh?”   
She shakes her head. She has read on the various human sexualities, when she came across the term in her readings. “Bisexual actually.” She’s not sure that’s entirely accurate, as pansexual felt relatively accurate for her too, but she goes with the one that feels more fitting.

David nods. “Cool. So you gonna call her?”   
She smirks, still feeling a little tense. “You going to call Cara?”   
“Fuck yeah I am!” He shouts and she laughs when one of the mother’s shoots them a sharp, stern look.

Before she can respond she spots that the other family is getting low on drinks so she bids him goodbye with a laugh, half of her mind thinking about Laura.

 

Hours later, Kyxia is dragging herself up the stairs, arms and legs heavy and eyes drooping. She officially has a fever now so sweat is collecting pretty much everywhere that it can. She can smell the sweet, heady scent of fruit on her and she’s grateful that at least heat sweat doesn’t stink.

She makes it to her room no sooner than she wishes and it is with great relief that she just drops onto the bed, lingering for a moment to breathe in the scents before crawling her aching limbs towards and under her nest. Already, she feels her mind slow down, tempted to just let go and relax.

She can’t though. Not yet. While Kim is thankfully out (as she is often), Jonathan is still awake and pantering about down stairs. He’s not drunk though, which is a blessing and a curse all in one, and he seems to be in a decent mood, as do the other boys currently at the home. No one is likely to bother her but she is already on edge from being in heat on earth of all places, far from her pack, and she can’t bring herself to settle just yet.

The last time she had been in heat, she had been at the Blade base. She had been lucky in that when it started, she had not been on a mission and Antok and Kolivan were quick to notice. Kolivan, being a particularly powerful alpha could easily smell the beginning of it, and Antok, a like minded omega, noticed the signs almost as soon as she herself did.

Kolivan quickly sent her to her room, fussing over her the whole way there. It had been him that brought her snacks and drinks of water and juice. He fretted over her much as she thinks a parent would, making her change into looser clothes than she usually were and fought her the whole time when she argued that she could technically still work. She had done it before and she wasn’t even in the deeper throes of heat yet. It had barely started. Naturally, he hadn’t heard a word of it and made a point to stand near the edge of her nest, blocking the door with his broad shoulders and judging glare. The gentle run of his claws through her hair softened the look though and she knew he was taking care of her in ways he saw fit, ways his instincts told him to.

Antok took a different approach. He had helped her gather blankets and pillows from wherever she wanted, swiping them from people’s rooms without asking, ignoring any protest they may give. When she had eyed Thace’s sweater, Antok had gone over and practically tore it off of the man, who seemed wholefully unsurprised. Unlike his comrade who had been playing a game with him. Antok and her had built her nest together, something she never really had the chance to do with anyone before as it was an activity for safe, close family members. Zyli had been neither of those things nor had anyone else before the Blades. Together, they had made it welcoming and when it was done and she was warmly tucked at the center, only then had he left her side to collect the rest of their pack, which consisted of Thace and Ulaz who had very fortunately not been away at the time.

She aches for that closeness now, aches to share her bed with someone, anyone. She feels as if she hasn’t spent a heat alone in forever, which, she supposes, is partially true as most of her previous heats had in fact been spent with the Blades.

But Kyxia is alone now, stuck on this dirt planet with no one, not even someone that can understand what she is going through. There is no omega here that can answer her whines with nuzzles and purrs and there’s no alpha to soothe her trembling muscles and hunger pangs.

She must do it alone.

She feels herself getting impossibly warmer and suddenly she’s reminded of the cashier from earlier and the phone number on the receipt that is currently housed in her jeans from earlier. It’s more than a bad idea, she knows, but right now Kyxia could care less and it’s with shaking hands that she sends a quiet thanks to Kim for forcing her to buy a phone.

She texts Laura and when she gets a quick response and the heat reaches higher, she can’t bring herself to regret it one bit.

After all, there is one thing a human can give her knowingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello yes idk how to write flirting and so that part of this chap is terrible. I had a lot of problems with this chap too but the biggest one actually ended up being moved to next chap so go figure.  
> I hope you guys liked this one. I'm off the next two days so hopefully I get some time to write. I've got an interview tmrw tho; wish me luck!


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 

She’s not _ entirely _ sure how she got in this position.

Laura’s hand is up her shirt and she knows how  _ that _ got up there but as for Kyxia being here? Or even them just doing this in general? That’s a bit more fuzzy.

She had texted the girl over an hour ago, just as she was settling into the warm haze that was her heat, and they had chatted back and forth for a little bit before Laura had invited her over to watch a movie and try the pizza that they had first talked over. She remembers riding over on her motorcycle and how easy it had been to just walk in and settle on the couch with her.

She had put on the movie, some spy movie that Kyxia thought was horribly inaccurate, and they had made conversation throughout the scenes. Kyxia suspected Laura had seen it several times now as she always seemed to know what was going on despite having barely glanced at the screen. She herself was uninterested in it and instead spent most of her time playing with Laura’s hair and fingers.

The conversation hadn’t been bad at all, which is what lost her if she’s being honest. Laura was easy to talk to and interesting as well. Kyxia traded stories of her family in exchange for battle stories of Laura and her brother, Max. She had to stretch her’s a little of course, and she’s sure in Antok and Kolivan knew she had referred to them as Dad and Mom respectively that she would never live it down. But it was worth it to see the way her nose scrunched up when she laughed really hard.

They were having such a good time talking in fact that she’s surprised to find herself kissing the other girl. She had almost forgotten that she was in heat and that sex was what brought her here in the first place.

Other than the warm weight of a hand on her thigh, she had felt like sex was completely off the table. It came as a shock to her that Laura was the one to initiate things, considering.

The first brush of lips had been a surprise. It shouldn’t be, as she’s been here the whole time and really what did she expect? But it is when Laura leans over and threads her hand into her hair, pulling her closer for a slow, deep kiss that has Kyxia almost gasping. It has been so long since anyone has touched her like this and with her heat fully settling in, she feels so so good.

It’s not hard to kiss back. She barely knows this girl but she likes the way she smells like sweet apples and tastes like sour candies. She likes how her honey hair feels in her hands when she lifts them to push strands behind her ears, keeping her hands there on her head even when she has no need to. She likes her voice too, how it runs smoothly and carefully, like she tests every word. Laura is smart and pretty and right now, she wants.

She needs.

  
  


She wakes up the next morning naked and on her stomach in a bed she doesn’t recognize. A hand is thrown over her hip, wrapped over her back and around her waist. Soft snores brush against her ear and she tiredly nuzzles into the mattress, her eyes feeling heavy with sleep as she wills the sun to go away.

It’s a weekend and her day off so she doesn’t really have anywhere to be yet. Laura is still asleep so she doesn’t feel bad for staying a little longer. She takes the time to center herself.

She’s pleasantly warm, just on this side of hot.  She can feel sweat starting to collect on her brow and she rubs her face a little roughly against the sheets, breathing in the scent of cotton as she does.

Laura snuggles into her back more, sighing in her sleep as she does, and she’s content to lay a little longer while she can. She knows the illusion will end soon, that when she wakes up their going to end this and she’s going to go back to the group home and finish her heat out in bitter solitude, but she takes what she can for now, relishes it even.

Soon, she will have to face reality again and with it will come the pressures of finding the blue lion and the monotonous rundown of work as well as the cycle of school days.

A sudden press against her bladder has her squirming and she tries her best to slide out of bed so she can tiptoe quickly towards the bathroom and pee. She swipes a t-shirt off the floor as she goes, one she’s sure isn’t hers, and she slips it on as she pees, toes wiggling against the cool tile.

As she’s washing her hands, pleasantly digging the pomegranate and mango scented soap into her palms and between her fingers, a pair of arms wrap around her waist, a face shoving against her shoulder.

“You look good in my shirt,” Laura sleepily mumbles to her and she chuckles, leaning back into the warmth a little.

“Better than you?” She snarks back. She hasn’t had this in awhile. She’s always been a bit of a tease, sometimes a little hostile to the people she’s been involved with, and she wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of the reason so few stayed longer than the first encounter. And while she doesn’t intend to continue what she has with Laura, she can’t help but fall into that line again.

She smiles into her shirt. “Most definitely.”

She doesn’t bother drying her hands off, instead shakes them a few times in the sink before turning around and planting them on Laura’s cheeks, who squeals loudly and shoves her off.

She cackles as Laura curses. “Ah you ass!”

Kyxia is still laughing when Laura comes back over and shoves at her again, swiping at her cheeks and shoving her own hands in her face. She swats them away but Laura persists and soon they’re batting at each other’s hands and giggling, kicking at their feet and knees.

Laura swings a foot at her thigh, prodding it with her big toe, and she bats it aside, grabbing ahold of her ankle and tugging her forward to wrap her up against her chest, biting playfully at her jaw. She laughs and noses against her nose.

“Do you want to stay for breakfast?” She asks her and she can feel herself purr, withholding any sound so as not to spook her. She likes this, she realizes. Likes having soft mornings with someone.

She decides she can pretend just a little longer.

She can have this, if only for a day.

“Sure.”

Together, they head towards the kitchen where Laura immediately puts on a pot of coffee. She makes her way to the fridge and peers inside to happily find some fruit cut up in there. She pulls it out and removes the lid, grabbing two plates to dump some pineapple onto.

“Want some toast? Or eggs?”

She hums, popping a yellow cube into her mouth. “Eggs sound nice.”

Laura nods and takes out a skillet. Wordlessly, she grabs the eggs out of the fridge and hands them over, receiving a quiet thanks in reply.

They don’t talk much after that, Laura cooking them scrambled eggs while they slowly eat the fruit. The coffee is done quickly and she’s quick to sweeten hers up a little, adding french vanilla creamer and some milk while she just adds honey and caramel to hers.   
When the eggs are done and eaten, she reluctantly sits back from the bar stool she’s placed herself in. “I should be heading out.”

She nods, wiping the back of her hand against her mouth. “I’ll grab your clothes. Be right back.” And she gets up before Kyxia can say anything, taking her mug with her.

She awkwardly sits in the kitchen alone, taking a slow sip of her own drink. She drags her fork against her plate once, causing a loud squeak to go up that has her quickly dropping the fork to stop it. This is the part she hates the most about one night stands.

Kyxia had never been very good at leaving. But she’s found that’s she had to, in her life.

Laura returns before she can start washing the dishes out of some need to move, and wordlessly hands her her pile of clothes with a somewhat reserved smile. It’s a sad one, in a way, and she wonders if she’s done something wrong.

“Thanks,” she says instead and she heads into the nearest bathroom to quickly change, leaving Laura’s shirt behind as she exits.

She guides her to the door and it’s there she feels the most out of place, shoving her hands into her back pockets, reflexively squeezing her butt as she does. “I had a good time.” She tells her, and she had. Despite the somewhat short date and sudden bout of sex, Laura had been good company. Someone easy to talk to. She didn’t feel like she owed her anything after this, didn’t feel like she hadn’t given enough or too much.

She leans against the doorframe and smiles at her, all soft and warm around the edges. “Me too.” She glances at her feet for a second before going on. “If you ever, ya know, give me a call?”   
Biting her lip, she nods. “I will.” And she surprises herself when she realizes she actually means it.

With not much more to do and no reason to stay, she bids her goodbye with a wave and smoothly mounts her bike. She doesn’t look behind her once and soon she’s heading back, going to the desert instead of wherever.

  
  


The desert is as welcoming as it has always been. That is to say, she finds solace in it’s angry hot glare and brittle bones, a hug forming around her that is stiff and disjointed but as comforting as she needs it to be.

She follows her routes again as soon as she parks her bike, easily finding the tracks she’s marked and scented and mapped out. She’s made quick work during the past little bit that she’s been here and she’s gone deep into the desert, searching aimlessly for a feeling that she can’t describe enough. Already, she knows Blue is not here. But she comes back anyway with the hope that if she just keeps going a little more, maybe her instincts will prove her wrong and she’ll actually feel something.

Her instincts have never been wrong before though and she doesn’t actually expect them to start now. She tredges on anyway.

She’s not sure what exactly she’ll feel when she gets close enough to Blue for the first time. With Red, it had been different than the others. She had felt at peace, like she had just come home to a warm bed or a roasting fire, all burnt at the edges and frayed in places but mostly whole. Red had captured her heart and torn everything about her life into pieces, setting it ablaze without a second thought, without an ounce of regret or apology.

Green and Yellow had been different. With Green, when she had finally made it and reached the shield protecting her, she had been excited. Her legs had bounced and her hands had twitched, eager to press forward and discover. She had wanted to keep going, to look and recount and mark as much as she could as quickly as possible. With Green, she had felt as if she were running out of time but also as if she had finally made it, as if the clock had been ticking this whole time and she had just managed to scrap by at the last second before catastrophic failure. 

Yellow had felt calm. With Yellow her bones had settled and her brain had stopped, pausing for just a moment to really reflect. It was the first time in a long time that Kyxia could remember actually feeling at peace with her life, with her situation. It had been with Yellow, that she was able to stabilize herself and remain firm with her decision, steady in the face of the unknown.

Red and Yellow gave her drive and relief. Green gave her answers. But all Blue has done so far is give her questions.

She finds herself doubting everything. Suddenly, she’s not just following orders and nodding her head and throwing herself into the line of danger. Suddenly, she’s alone on a planet of her past, knowing nothing but the blade strapped to her thigh and the marks on her skin.

She wants to know everything and it’s not something she’s used to.

Before, she had felt secured in her gifts. She had been hesitant, at first, to accept them, to believe in what the druids and Haggar were telling her, but she grew to trust it, to trust the pushes and pulls in her gut and the whispers at the edge of possibility. Now she’s lost though and now she wonders if she’s really as powerful as she and everyone else believed because surely she would have felt Blue sooner than this? More than this? She can barely tell she’s on this planet and she fears if she had not known already, she probably wouldn’t have noticed her presence at all.

Some druid she is, she scoffs.

But it’s not just Blue that plagues her, or thoughts of Haggar and Antok and Zyli.

No, sometimes she looks around her, at the empty sand and the frozen clouds, and she thinks of her parents. Her real ones. And she remembers the stories, the ones told to her by Zyli and the Empire, by Kolivan and Thace, and she wonders. She’s on earth now, so far from it all but back to where she had first started and she thinks she knows nothing, absolutely nothing.

Her whole life she’s fought and studied and tried her hardest only for her to realize she has no clue where she’s actually come from or who she even is.

Who is she without this blade? Without these powers?   
_ Nothing, _ a part of her mind tells her. Because it’s true isn’t it?

Her birth became a bargaining chip, her existence a spoil of war. And her blade was a testament of that. And it was her powers that made her worthy, made her someone that no one wanted to risk too much.

Without them, she was nothing, and she’s sure she would have died a long time ago were she just simple, old, plain Kyxia.

On earth though, she thinks about it often. She can forget, for just a moment, about the Empire and the Blade and space and she thinks she can remember being a lonely child of the desert, one creeping along its dunes and laughing with people that loved her for her and not what she was made of, what she could do.

She thinks of her mother, who is gone and up there, fighting a war with the enemy, right under their nose, and how she could die any day. It’s a dangerous game she knows. She had played it herself. And Kyxia had been caught, had been exposed, but Krolia hadn’t yet and she fears for it every day. Fears for the life of a woman she hasn’t even met but knows their lives are forever linked, if just by blood and sacrifice.

She thinks of her father, who she has no idea what shape he is or what he looks like or how his voice sounds. She has no clue if he is alive or what his name is or even where to start looking. She knows he had been in this state years ago, but she knows better than most that one can leave just as simply as they can breathe. That he could be long gone, either to time or to distance.

She thinks of Laura, who knows nothing about her really but the way she feels and how her voice sounds in the morning. Laura who doesn’t know her name isn’t Keith and who doesn’t know she has purple markings on her back that are nothing like tattoos. Laura who can’t make the same noises with her tongue that Kyxia can and who knows nothing about the war she finds herself endlessly in. Laura who doesn’t know her very planet is in danger, who doesn’t know that Kyxia was once apart of the very monstrous empire currently enslaving a good deal of the universe. Laura, who smiles at her for it all anyway and who gladly made her breakfast.

She knows nothing of her place here, other than what’s she definitely searching for, but as she tracks more footsteps into the dirt, sweat clinging quickly to her skin and clothes, she thinks she might find just a bit more than originally intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a NSFW version of this chapter available. I wasn't sure if anyone wanted to read that considering it's not the main ship here but if you do just request it and I'll figure out how to share it with you. It's also the very first time I wrote smut so it's probably terrible lmao. Another reason I didn't post it.  
> This chap is short I know. But I'm working on a huge chapter coming up so hopefully it'll make up for it.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

 

Kyxia first heard of Voltron when she was at the Academy.

She had been young then, perhaps only 7 decaphoebes, and she remembers that she had heard the name uttered in whispers in the hall, behind barely parted lips and hands.

The Empire knew of King Alfor and Altea and the treachery they gave to Emperor Zarkon. How they had betrayed their trust and destroyed Daibazel without a seconds thought, a bit of hesitation. Everyone was taught to hate alteans, and that was why the Empire had sought every last one out and killed them out. An eye for an eye, so to speak.

Even then Kyxia had known there was more to the story and when she first heard of Voltron, how it had been composed of five beings, five paladins, two of which were, impossibly so, King Alfor and Emperor Zarkon, she had known she was right.

They didn’t teach empire children about Voltron in school. Of course not. A superweapon that had the potential to destroy everything Emperor Zarkon stood and fought for? It was blasphemy and to even utter the cursed myth was cause for reprimand.

But punishment had never stopped curious school children.

When she had heard the passing kits talking of a giant warship that the Emperor feared, her own curiosity had spiked. Zarkon? Scared? It seemed impossible.

She had done what she always did back then. She researched. It took a lot of sneaking around and carefully phrased questions to the right soldiers, but eventually she was able to locate the books and scrolls of the past and the story found there astounded her.

Voltron had been more than a weapon. It had been a gift, something magical from the universe and so far beyond it’s time that even today scientists and alchemists didn’t understand it. She knew because later, when she was older and put into the ranks, she had found more data on it from the druids and High Priestess Haggar herself.

Legend had it that Zarkon and Alfor, long before the creation of the rift and the destruction of their two planets, had been friends, close allies and brothers forged by combat and loyalty. They had fought together, side by side, and they claimed many victories, spreading peace all over the universe with their three other friends. Voltron had emerged, much as the rift, from a transreality comet and it had been King Alfor, renowned alchemist, that had managed to shape it into the lions of Voltron.

Black, Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green. Voltron had consisted of five ships, five lions that when forged together made a giant meca robot capable of more than any other ship made, both before and after it’s emergence.

Black, the Guardian Spirit of the Sky, carried peace in the wind, stretching across time and space to lead people into prosperity and safety. Red, Guardian Spirit of Fire, forged hope and security it their path, burning the ruins of the past behind them. Blue, Guardian Spirit of Water, gave fresh water to everyone, nurturing civilizations back to health and happiness. Yellow, Guardian Spirit of Land, strengthened them and their bones, helping planets become stable and the people proud. Green, Guardian Spirit of the Forest, breathed new life into everything, connecting them together with similar thoughts of unity, shielding them from the danger.

Voltron had helped many, restoring countless planets and civilizations, protecting them from pirates and monstrous creatures and things unexplained. All for nothing. There was no parade or money given to the paladins, no physical reward other than the joy of pride of being a hero, of helping them.

But when Emperor Zarkon and the other paladins fought, for reasons history knew not, and they disbanded, it was with bitter resentment that they turned. Kyxia isn’t sure what led to Voltron destroying the Galran homeland but she sures it’s more than her books claim and she’s sure it’s more than the soldiers tell her when she’s older and one of them.

With their split and war wrought on them all, destroying all hopes of forgiveness, it lead to the inevitable dismiss of the lions. They were sent off by Alfor, who had known Emperor Zarkon was coming. Myths say that he hid Black away, trying to keep her safe from his lost friend, to keep the universe safe. Red stayed by her paladins side until the very end, when he too was slain and over run and then she became her own captive to the Empire, a prisoner to solitude and time and question. The other three lions were sent off with their own paladins and when they themselves were found, the lions were nowhere to be seen. Even when they were slaughtered, bleeding and crying and bruised, they refused to give up their locations.

The Empire would spend several thousand decaphoebs trying to locate them, making little headway at all.

But she found them.

Despite all odds, Kyxia had managed to locate Red (which hadn’t been hard considering she was stationed on her ship) and then Green and Yellow and now here she was with Blue. She knew, once she located her, that she’d have to search for Black next, which seemed even more impossible. After all, of Zarkon, Black’s literal former paladin, couldn’t locate her, what chance did she have?

But she had to. Finding the Voltron lions was imperative. It was her greatest mission yet, the one she could not afford to lose.

She had already failed enough.

The Academy may have taught her very little about Voltron and when she became a soldier, forged in blood and armour, she learned hardly much more. Empire soldiers knew of Voltron, knew to keep their eyes open for giant meca cats, but hardly anyone actually believed they existed anymore. They thought them to be long destroyed. It was illogical to assume they were fine after all these years, especially when they’ve been looking the whole time. They weren’t safe aboard a ship like Red was. No one knew where they were hidden at.

It was with the druids she learned the most about Voltron. She learned what it had been capable of, the weapons it could produce and the moves it could do when whole. Separately the lions were formable opponents, but together they seemed almost unbeatable. From what little Haggar had shared with them, the only thing she knew to actually be a struggle for it had been the rift and that was something that couldn’t be created, couldn’t be controlled. It was a whole new entity, not shackled by the laws of the universe or any being.

The druids taught her much about quintessence, so much that she knew how big a miracle Voltron was. She knew how impossible it should be. The lions used quintessence in a way that has never been mimicked, could never be, and from what she’s heard, she fears what it would do in the hands of someone like Haggar, like Zarkon and the druids.

Who knows what they could do with that kind of power?

She does.

It’s why she keeps coming to this desert, time and time again. Even when her body is in pain and she’s tired and she needs to go. Even when she knows the chances of Blue being here are slim, that she should move on before wasting all of her time, time she doesn’t have, on nothing.

Voltron can never end up in the witch’s hands. She won’t let it.

  
  


The months pass by. Her birthday moves with the sun, away and gone, as Earth gets colder, temperatures dropping and snow falling from the sky in places. Well, she amends, on half the planet since on the other half, it’s getting warmer.

She finds the equator to be a strange concept. Earth is truly marvelous. She wonders if Diabazel had been like this too.

Her part of the world stays mostly the same. She at least doesn’t have to deal with any snow, like the humans in the northern regions do, and she is thankful for it. As far as she is aware, her genes do not produce thick coats of fur. She doesn’t have scales either though so she’s not really sure what region her family would have prevailed spectacularly in. 

Not that fur would be of much help to her here anyway. Should she show it, any terran would panic and call up some government group as fast as possible. She’d rather not deal with that and she’s thankful that her body does seem to run hotter than most terrans here and so the chill that does slightly cover Arizona, doesn’t affect her much at all.

It’s nearing December now and she’s spent several phoebes, months, on Earth. She has not yet located Blue and she’s already made plans to explore the next desert over once school is out of session for it’s break. She’s noticed that as the days have passed, people seem to be gearing up for a holiday known as Christmas, excitement lighting their edges and warming their faces.

Christmas, she comes to know, is a human holiday prevalent in christianized countries, like the north american continent. It is intended to honor the religion, which she knows very little about and sees no need to educate herself further on, but from what she’s seen it’s mostly an excuse to buy gifts and eat fatty foods and deserts.

The group home she lives at will not be celebrating Christmas.

Everyone else is happy getting trees to string lights and shiny ornaments on though. Decorating their houses with various things and playing songs geared towards the holiday. She doesn’t really see the point behind the whole thing but she does think of the holidays she herself grew up on and she remisses that she can understand their joy.

Zyli had never been one for happy times or family bonding and the Blades had been more practical in that they were usually too focused on missions and not dying to celebrate minor holidays, but the bigger, more traditional and important holidays, those were always honored.

She’s not sure the Galra have a religion, as most just believe in honoring the stars, composed of past lives and former warriors and rulers. The stars, painted there by a Goddess of time and creation. It’s why they all have the need to explore. She doesn’t think she’s ever met a single Galra that was content staying still and planet bound for long. They have always felt the need to move, to know more.

There was one holiday, known by date rather than name, that she always honored, no matter where she lived, and most of her species did the same, even Zyli. It was simple, where one merely lit different colored candles to represent lost loved ones, and they would mourn their sacrifice, their life and time here, and then they would blow out the flames, releasing them to the stars where they would belong. The day would end on reflection, meditating and praying (in the more religious minded homes).

She always lit two candles: one for her human father she never knew and one for her mother who she always missed.

When she joined the Blades, the number of candles grew and every decaphoebe, they would all congregate to light them together, united by loss and grief and fear. They all knew they would one day be one of them, just another flickering light soon to go out.

Before becoming a Blade, she had held very little value in the tradition. It was strong, in theory, and she respected it for its message, for the people she had lost, but she wasn’t really sure if she believed in the Goddess, in the stars.

It was Ulaz that made her change her mind.

She had met Ulaz when she was eleven, right around the time she had finished her training and High Priestess Haggar had deemed her skilled enough as a druid to start work, to enter the labs.

Ulaz was one of the few non-druid scientists she worked with. It was somewhat rare for Galra soldiers to become scientists. Many dabbled a little in it, as was custom since the Empire was always advancing, but to be primarily a scientist and not a soldier first? That was rare. Ulaz doubled as a medical officer too, which just made him even more intriguing to her.

His primarily role in the labs had been, of course, to treat the prisoners brought in for experimentation and testing. He was to take care of the pre and post care after “surgery”, mending them up enough that any effort put into them by the druids wasn’t wasted. He recorded their vitals and such too, so that the druids had something to compare later. As a young druid, it had been her job to collect his reports and to oversee his movements. As a whole, the druids were greatly untrusting of everyone, even the Galra.

Especially the soldiers.

She spent a lot of time with Ulaz, usually alone, and she learned a lot from him. He had been mostly silent at first, perhaps untrusting if her just as much as she was of him. Haggar had drilled it into her head over and over that the other galra soldiers would look at her differently, that they didn't understand the work they were doing and they their feeble minds couldn't even comprehend the abilities they had. That they feared them mostly and fear lead to ignorance and badly aimed hostility. Her whole childhood had already made her wary though. Because she wasn’t just a druid now, she was and had always been a halfbreed. Something the Empire constantly looked down on.

As if she had any control over what her blood held.

It’s not like she could hide it very well either. Kyxia may have managed to keep her appearance looking mostly normal but she slipped often as a child. Her shapeshifting hadn’t been as stable before and so sometimes her pale lilac skin would shift into just pale pink, white skin. Her hair, purple and thick and very galran, would leak dark and become black. Her eyes had never properly been yellow, only becoming faintly so when she was too heated and lost control of her instincts, and that had always been an easy tell for them. She had a tail and it thankfully was always galra looking, not at all like the more colorfully reptilian ones she’s seen on others. Hers was thin and purple and soft with fur; like a lions, she thinks ironically.

She was an obvious halfling, because despite her pointed ears and tail and mostly purple features, her skin was too light to be fully galran and she was horribly too short and thin. She had always looked more terran than she had known.

Ulaz had been a kindred spirit because just as easily as he could tell she wasn’t a pureblood, she could tell he wasn’t either. Their skin tones were nearly identical and while he wasn’t definitely more passing then her, she knew the tells, knew what to look for.

But he did too apparently because Ulaz must have sensed her unease, her distrust and hatred for the Empire. He must have known she held no love for it or Haggar or anyone within it as it had been Ulaz that had opened her eyes to the Blade of Marmora. It had been Ulaz that had told her where she came from. Ulaz that had helped her find solace with them, that had helped her escape a life she had feared would be her prison forever, a life that had made her hate herself just as much as Zarkon.

It was Ulaz that gave her hope and faith and he is the reason she now believes in the stars. For surely only the Goddess could have gifted her with this chance, could have made her and Ulaz’s paths cross so.

She’s not entirely sure of the exact transition of dates but she believes the holiday would be around this time and so she makes a point to buy several candles over the course of a few weeks. She may not be celebrating this earth tradition, but she can honor her own. Kim and a few of the boys that live at the home give her odd looks when she keeps bringing one home but she ignores them all and asks Jonathan for a lighter that he easily gives, surprisingly, pulling out a different one just as smoothly. Perhaps Christmastime makes even him soft.

She lines the candles along her window and on her nightstand and she knows she doesn’t have enough, that there’s no way she’s going to be able to light one for every agent lost, but she does what she can with what little space she has.

She tries her best. She thinks several of the Blades would be amused at the choices of scents she picks for them. She marks each candle with their name, lining it in thick, capital black sharpie. Earth is amazing in that it has many many different smells and this is what they do with them, bottling them up into waxes to share with everyone.

Perhaps this planet is a bit more beautiful in it’s natures than she originally thought.

She doesn’t light them yet. Just waits for Christmas to come and when it does, she will light them all carefully.

_ For Dad. For Krolia. For Ivzak. For Yuen. For Opa. For Trezix. For . . . _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot I was going to merge this chapter with the last one so here's both! Both are kinda short for it and the pacing feels a little weird but honestly I feel like Kyxia doesn't really care for the passing of time so it feels right to me. The next chapter is going to be super long tho. It's also the last one before Shiro! I'm super excited for it.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

 

For the first time in her life, Kyxia goes to detention.

It’s almost spring time now and though she’s only been on earth for a couple of phoebes, she can count on more than two hands the number of times a teacher or staff member has told her she had detention. She’s never gone of course, which results in them telling her she has even more detentions, and despite their best efforts to catch her before she leaves the building, she always manages to get around them. She is a spy after all. Sneaking around and getting away is literally her life.

Today however she’s decided to go. Lately they’ve been sending her to make up her detentions in some empty alternative learning classroom. Sometimes there’s a teacher in there to watch her and sometimes there’s another student with her but as she’s made it obvious she’s got no plans of running, they tend to leave her be. At least she does her schoolwork.

She knows she confuses the terrans. She’s been pulled aside by many of them expressing their concern, their disbelief that someone as smart as her would just throw it all away just to punch and argue with a kid. But Kyxia can’t explain to them that this is who she is, that for her school has always been a battleground in a sense and she hasn’t quite managed to train her mind and instincts into believing she’s safe here.

She doesn’t mean to hurt them anymore. At first she hadn’t known better, had assumed it was all the same, but now she just can’t seem to stop herself from reacting before it’s too late.

Victory or death, the voices whisper. She hasn’t yet had it sink in that there’s nothing to win here yet. Nothing to prove.

Perhaps it’s the bit of guilt that drives her to actually attend detention for once but mostly she thinks it’s just because she has things to look over and doesn’t really want to go anywhere else. She doesn’t have work and the group home is too loud and while she supposes she could go to the library she would rather just stay here than waste the gas.

So she does.

The teacher overseeing detention shocked face is more than worth it and were she a younger, less mature kit she would have cackled.

Terrans are amusing.

She slides into a desk easy enough, ignoring the looks sent her way. She’s known she’s gained a sort of reputation here, that people are intimidated by her, put off by the hostile air she gives off, but she doesn’t mind.

They should be scared. She is, knowing what’s resting just under her skin at every moment.

Pulling out a sketchbook and a pencil, she’s quick to work. She ignores the teacher when she comes in, telling them to be quiet and get busy on whatever. Kyxia already has her task ready and waiting for her.

She’s been studying the deserts for months. Exploring and detailing as much as she can about them, trying to find patterns and clues for what she’s looking for. So far, she’s been unlucky. Neither of the two deserts Kyxia has searched have proved to be useful though. She’s getting closer, she knows, as the last one did have a spike in quintessence, so she knows the blue lion’s location is more south than her current checkpoint.

She’s gone over several maps, done lots of research on the areas, and she believes she’s found it. She’s positive the next desert will be the one hosting Blue but the distance it is away has proven to be a challenge. Unlike the other two, it’s too far to excuse a trip to. She wouldn’t be able to get away with sneaking off there, not with Jonathan and a social worker watching over her. But she’s found a solution.

The Galaxy Garrison.

Kyxia is a junior, which means that by terran standards she still has another year of education left to finish. But when she first registered for the school, she had made sure to keep her options open, which meant she had started the paperwork for early graduation, something the guidance counselor had made obvious was an option for her.

Up until now she hadn’t really seen a point in looking too much into it but now that she knows there’s a school located right at the edge of her target, her interest has piqued.

She’s had her eye on the Garrison early into her stay here. One of the first things Kyxia had done was see how developed earth was in terms of space exploration and that search had inevitably lead her to various space programs.

The Galaxy Garrison was one of the leading contenders on the planet, the one that seemed to have the most successful missions under its belt, sending out groups of graduated, trained soldiers every year. They were also one of the few programs to be training fighter pilots. Interesting, she thinks, considering the Garrison has no signs of needing such training.

And yet.

She had found it suspicious and something that she might need to later look into so the Garrison has been on her radar for awhile. It’s just a benefit that they perfectly fit into her plans now.

Admissions are already closed but there’s a late admissions date as well that’s she’s already applied for, sending in the proper papers all by herself. All she really has to do now is take some fancy test at this school and then, should the Garrison see her as promising, take their own acceptance tests.

She already knows they’ll accept her. She’s too smart not to be.

After all, Kyxia knows a lot more about what’s out there than anyone else on this planet does. And she’s already been to space.

She is worried though that her late application might be a hindrance. They only accept a certain amount of students and once those seats are filled, the others are turned away. Who’s to say there’s even a spot left for her?   
She tries not to worry about it too much. Not being accepted into the Garrison will be annoying but it won’t ruin her plans entirely. She’d rather not wait another year and she won’t, Garrison or not. It’ll make them harder to accomplish without them and she would still have to infiltrate them anyway, but she could go on.

Currently, she’s tracing out a map of the desert she plans on going to next. She’s marked major points of interests, like the Garrison and the small town nearby, but without actually being present there there’s not much she can mark down. Most of her tracking is based off of feeling and though she’s good at it, she’s not so much from this distance.

The fact that she had found Green at an even larger distance does not settle with her well and she tries not to think about it, tries not to feel burned somehow.

Blue is her opposite. Her foil. It makes sense she would be harder to find.

She’s not sure if she’s convincing herself enough.

As she idly shades in some desert rock (she admits to get a little side tracked since she’s doodling in the margins), she ponders over the lions.

She’s been doing this for awhile, searching for them. At times it feels like several decaphoebes have passed but she’s knows it’s more like two. After Red had been found, there had been a lapse in her search, mostly because Red had been an accident, one of circumstance rather than mission and intention. Red had found her, she likes to think.

The others had just followed.

After she found Yellow, she had immediately started looking for Green, and right after Green was Blue but what happens next? One would think Black but she knows the Black Lion is different. There’s a reason no one’s found her, a reason that the Head of Voltron is so hard to find, despite being the largest of the lions. Despite still technically having a live paladin to bond with.

Black is hiding for a reason and a part of her is telling her to wait. That Black will not be found by her but will be looking for her instead.

She and Black will meet one day, she is sure, but she is not so sure that it’s going to be where her next mission takes her, no matter how much Kolivan wishes it so.

Kyxia has been searching for a long time. Far longer than anyone perhaps, even when she didn’t know it. It was all she was ever good at and here she is, doing it again. Sure it’s for a different group, a different leader, one she actually respects and believes in, but she wonders how different they all really are.

They all want something.

Zarkon had always wanted more. Haggar had always wanted more. It was their end, their fate, and she hopes and prays that in the Blades quest to protect everyone, that they don’t end up the same.

Stretching one’s self too thin does not bode well for anyone.

She remembers the stories of King Alfor and Altea and she understands. Even when the war is over, when you’ve lost, there’s still something to keep fighting for.

Be it a daughter or an enslaved planet or a mother you haven’t met.

They all have their reasons.

  
  


Later, she dreams. Or rather, she remembers.

It starts out quiet. The Galra ships had always seemed so, always so still with death and fear. At Central Command, the feeling was doubled.

She had been there for phoebes at the time. Still a child but only in body. Looking at her then, she supposes even that was up for debate.

They had strapped her to a table, her body bare and all illusions dropped. Haggar had long broken them, forcing her body to appear the way it should be. The way it was.

Without any glamours, she had been able to really look at herself for the first time in what felt like forever. It wasn’t a good angle, as she was on her back and they had strapped her ankles, wrists, and hips down, but with head movement still capable, she could see enough. What she couldn’t see, she could feel.

Her skin was pale, the only bit of purple on it were the bold, thick lines that ran along the back of her lower legs up to her knee. Diamond pointed lines that she knew were mirrored on her back, though that one was shorter and stopped at the bottom of her ribs, having started just at the top of her spine. A thin tail protruded from his tailbone, the most galra like feature she had.

She didn’t have claws. At least, not now. Hers were retractable and only usually came out when they were needed, be it because she has fighting or hunting or because she felt defensive and cornered. She suspected they would come out soon, as would the fangs she knew were waiting too.

The rest of her body, from what she could tell, was terribly human like. She was too pale, not even lilac in shade, and what little fur she did have wasn’t thick or dark enough to even be called fur. The hair atop her head was purple thankfully, but black was mixed in with it and she knew that was enough for them to sneer at too. Her ears were pointed, from what she could tell by the little bit she could feel with her limited wrist movement, and though she knew (from the last time she had allowed herself to look like this) the tips were purple, the rest of them were not.

Her eyes were probably the same as they had always been. Dark blue, almost purple, and surrounded by white, not yellow. And not glowing. Not in their dormant state.

The room she’s in is empty but she knows it won’t be for long. She knows, partially, why she’s here. The Empire hates hybrids like her, hates anyone with less than 100% pure galran blood. Even Prince Lotor was detested, his name spat with spit and disgust.

It was no secret that the druids experimented on people, even hybrids. Galra they may be but as a whole, they were trash. Easily discardable and no one would pitch a fit. Not their Galran parents that were too disgusted to share their name with and not their non-galran parents who hated them on principle. Hybrids were a stain on both legacies. A mistake.

But they were perfect to experiment on because not only did it teach the druids how to control outsider species but their own as well, all wrapped up into one, lone, forgotten body. Hybrids were like gift wrapped toys to them.

But she knows that’s not the only reason she’s here. Because if it was then she would have been snatched long before her graduation at the Academy. They wouldn’t have wasted resources and time on her if this was all she was going to be used for.

She remembers her review, just over a week ago, and the way High Priestess Haggar had eyed her and she wonders what she had found.

What had been so interesting about her to result in this?   
She wants to ask her that and the universe seems to want to give her that chance for it’s her that enters the room when the door slides open.

High Priestess Haggar is as chilling as the rumors had made her out to be and though she’s seen her before, the fear is just as strong. Perhaps stronger.

She has white hair, something most suspect to be caused by quintessence overexposure, and her body is thin and bony. Kyxia can easily see her cheekbones and when her baggy sleeves roll down just a little as she moves her hand up, she can make out the jut of her wrist. She looks starved, underfed, and it makes her swallow hard.

That is not how any body should look.

The glowing yellow eyes that bore into her own are calculating and Haggar doesn’t seem at all bothered by her nude state. That makes one of them. She’s nine and no one has ever seen her look this way before. She feels as if something has been taken from her already.

She places her hand on her ankle, sharp pointed nails digging into her skin there and she knows there will be marks when the hand lifts, knows indents are inevitable. Haggar rolls the bone before dragging her nails up a little higher, towards her knee. She hums, as if satisfied, and her eyes trace the movement.

“You don’t even know what you have do you?” She asks her and she swallows again. Kyxia isn’t sure if she’s actually supposed to respond or not.

If so, she’s not sure she can. Her tongue feels awfully too big and heavy for her mouth.

Haggar doesn’t seem bothered though, just gives another hum before removing her hand and placing it instead on her cheek, where she then traces down her jaw and to her chin. She grasps it and forcefully pulls it up, so that their eyes can truly meet.

She feels like she’s looking at the face of death. It smiles, full of teeth, and says hello, all without words.

“There’s magic in your blood.” She tells her boldly, as if she’s not ripping up her entire life. “I want to know what it does.”

Kyxia has heard a lot about the druids. They are all old and from a planet no one else has ever seen. There bodies are wrapped carefully, so no skin save their fingers are ever revealed. And they are terrifying, Loyal to High Priestess Haggar to a fault, they kill on command but they prolong it for fun.

For science.

There’s never been a new druid, to her knowledge. They have all just always been there, the same number, the same shape. She knows there’s more of them, many many more, but you can never really tell. Haggar seems partial to the same group, as she keeps a few of them close by at all times. All the other druids are sent to ships, either collecting quintessence or overseeing some prisoners Haggar has her eyes on. Or Commanders, should suspicion arise. You can’t lie to them after all. They always know.

To hear that she might be one of them is a shock.

Kyxia has never known her blood family. Has no knowledge of what they were or could be. She knows her parents were Galra and Terran, but nothing more. Nothing more than what the spy group she had been hidden at had on her. Which was barely nothing.

But she has never heard of a galra with druid blood. Galra are not alchemists, they don’t have links to magic, and it makes no sense that she would have this power, especially since from little the Empire has on Terra, they are far from quintessence sensitive themselves.

There is an explanation here. One she doesn’t have. One Haggar wants.

When the first bit of magic hits her, a rush of power coming from Haggar’s own hands, she knows she’s going to get that answer, one way or another. Her head is thrown back, Haggar’s hand still clamped to her chin, and her eyes are wild with pain, fangs bared.

She had always thought death to be chilling but right now, she feels as if she were on fire.

  
  
  


When she wakes, her body is warm. She knows it’s not really, that it’s merely a byproduct from her dream, that she’s just imagining the feeling of magic on her, but she can feel the heat deep in her bones as if she were on fire. Everything burns and the part of her that’s still lost to that time wonders when she will turn to ash. When will it ever be over.

She had been barely nine when the druids started experimenting on her. Haggar had spent months trying to figure out what made her so special, what had made it possible for druid magic to run through her veins, but she had never found the answer. They had tested her blood, her body, her magic even, and they found nothing. Cross referenced with so many species, so many facts, all for nothing. All the knowledge Haggar had collected over the many many years she’s been studying, and nothing.

It’s one of her greatest failures as an alchemist.

If she even dares to label Haggar as such that is. Witch is by far the more accurate term, considering at how twisted she had made herself and her abilities, her gift.

Looking at Kyxia, one wouldn’t guess that she had been tortured for close to a year. She has no scars from the magic, no alterations to her body. All she had to mark it was the white strands of hair that framed her face. Unlike prisoners, her limbs hadn’t been hacked at and her mind was still her own. Her own magic had seen to that, relentlessly fighting against Haggar’s and the druid’s every step of the way.

It had refused to be harnessed and controlled though, no matter how hard they tried, and in the end, with nothing, Haggar had deemed her too useful to be just a mere study.

So she had joined the druids.

It hadn’t been a choice she herself would have made but it had never really been a choice at all. High Priestess Haggar had come in and released her, binding her hands with special gloves made just for her, and told her she was going to teach her everything she needed to know.

She had just nodded and that had been that.

Kyxia knows they had believed her to be broken, like every Champion that came through the arenas. They fought for the Empire, slaves to the ideas that had imprisoned and harmed them in the first place. She knows they think she had lost her way, had merely forgotten that she wasn’t meant to be used like that in the first place.

But Kyxia had not forgotten.

Her body might be clean and free of harm, but she remembers. She will always remember magic’s burn.

She hesitates to claim that she won, in the end. This, whatever she is now, doesn’t feel like winning.

It wasn’t just her bangs that had changed though because as time went on and Haggar taught her more, her markings became more prominent, and it was obvious to all that the same markings on Haggar’s face were matched on her own.

Two long, thin lines went down her cheeks, painted in bright, fiery red. Brighter and bolder than Haggar’s.

As soon as they had appeared, she had been ordered to cover them. No one must ever know of them. Not even the other druids. Especially the others, in fact. So she wore a bandana at all times, concealing her lower face.

Unlike the other druids, Kyxia had not always been covered. She was not like them, not at all old or raised in the same beliefs they were. She was Galra and though druid magic coursed through her veins, she would always be galra and Haggar had recognized that and her dress looked more like the woman’s than the other druids did.

She had worn a cloak of dark purple, with ties keeping it together crossing over her chest, and black armour underneath, tightly wrapped around her so as not to be seen. Only her legs were visible from the cut in the cloak. She had worn fingerless gloves, black as well, and her hair and skin were seen as purple again. Her hair was always down, white bangs making her look even more otherworldly.

She looked nothing like a soldier. Nothing like a druid. And yet.

And yet.

She hated being seen as one of them. They had tortured her, had used and experimented on her as if she were nothing, and then expected her to work with and love them as if they had always been together, had always been family. When Haggar had become her teacher, showing her how to harness and use her magic, she had signed her up for exile.

The Empire, by large, detested the druids and if she thought she had been hated before, it was nothing compared to then.

But even the glares and hissed insults sent to her meant nothing when she was alone at night. No one could hate her more than she hated herself. Because she wasn’t just a mindless, lowly soldier for the Empire anymore. Before she could get away with just nodding and guarding a door, now she was the one behind the door.

She had tortured people. Had killed them. Yes, she had done it with Haggar or another druid watching over her, yes she hadn’t wanted to, but she had. It had been her magic that killed and hurt them. It was her hands their blood was on. It was her ears that had heard their pleas and it was her they had looked at when they died.

She’s not sure how much longer she would have lasted had it not been for Ulaz.

Ulaz had seen her resentment, her hatred, and he had given her the greatest gift imaginable. He had pulled her aside and helped her learn the truth, that her mother had been a Blade, that it had been the Blades that were hiding and protecting her as a baby, and that it was the Balde’s she could go to now, should she wish to change it all.

When she had told him yes, her hands warm from magic and her blood cold with fear, he had sent Thace to her.

She had met Thace before, as the man was often seen with another Commander. The druids didn’t often attend high council meetings with Haggar, but sometimes, when Emperor Zarkon had a particular task for them, Haggar would take them along and she would see first hand all the commanders there. All eager, bloodthirsty soldiers lacking any will or self awareness.

Thace had been a familiar face and one she had not suspected to see when Ulaz had told her he was sending someone that could help her get to the Marmora base safely.

Thace, working in the higher up circles (and wasn’t that such a shock? That the Empire had a spy at their highest level of security?), had made a request for a druid to accompany him on a mission given to him by his commander, a mission that was to take place at a planet the Empire knew was high in quintessence levels.

She’s not sure how he had done it but somehow he had not only managed to get it approved, but had managed to get her specifically. It had been one of her first solo missions since joining the druids, as Haggar didn’t quite trust her out of her sight yet. It was that fact that made her even more impressed with him. No one made Haggar do anything she didn’t want to be done.

They had boarded a ship, a simple battle cruiser, and Thace had let her pilot, despite being one of the best pilot’s in the Empire. She had read the reports, her eyes eagar for the fighter pilot stats, as she had always longed to be behind those controls herself. It seems he had looked at her records to though for he had apparently seen her own scores from the Academy and wanted to see her fly. Insisted she be the one to do so even.

Looking back she suspects it had been a test. Do you blindly follow my directions or lure me to a remote location and assassinate me?

She had not disappointed him though and almost the whole time there, the two of them had talked shop, discussing various maneuvers and the latest ship updates the Empire had released. He had made her forget her nervousness.

It had all returned as soon as they made it to the base though. Nothing said intimidating or badass like being sandwiched between two black holes.

Her and Thace were met by two masked soldiers, Blade’s she knew, and when they escorted them inside, everyone she met along the way with their mask on and a hand on their blades, she was reminded how out of place she was.

Only her and Thace were wearing Empire armour.

They had brought her to a meeting hall, where Blade members were lined along a walkway and at the end of it, two tall men stood. One of them clearly being the leader, as marked by his different armour.

They were all silent as they approached and when Thace kneeled and bowed respectively, she had hesitated to do the same. Before she could though, the leader was already telling Thace to rise and then he turned to her.

“Kyxia of the Thymale sector. Former charge to Commander Zyli. Top of your class at the Academy. Former Lieutenant under Commander Ryzit. A druid under the witch Haggar.” He says and she realizes, as she knows she should have already, that they have done their research. They know her.

She should have realized when Ulaz approached her that they would know about her. Who invites a stranger to join a rebellion without looking into them? And Thace had obviously known about her background, if he had access to her Academy records. But the leader has clearly looked into her and suddenly she fears more from him than she ever had with Haggar.

She never willingly walked right into Haggar’s hands after all.

There’s some murmuring when he mentions the druids and she wants to close her eyes and disappear, once to pretend it’s not real, but instead she swallows and gives a nod.

He goes on.

“Ulaz thinks you would make a great ally to us.” Leader says, his words measured and slow. She says nothing and waits. “I am inclined to see his point.”   
Before she can do anything like give a sigh of relief, he presses on. “Why should we trust you?”

She freezes. He keeps going. “You have fought for the Empire for decaphoebes. They trained you and taught you everything you know. You worked for them with Ryzit and you are now a druid, one of the worst creatures I have ever seen. The druids kill without mercy, brutalize and tear apart people as if they are nothing. They have killed many of us. Why should I trust you to be any different?”   
She wants to shout and cry and fight all at the same time. She is a child, she wants to say. Barely eleven. She isn’t even a proper omega yet and she’s tinier than anyone in this entire room. How could she be a threat?   
But she knows she is and what’s more she knows that they know that. Magic runs through her veins and blood coats her skin. She is born from war,  _ for _ war. A weapon above anything else.

Because Kyxia may be eleven but she has fought battles. And she’s won. And she has tortured and killed people. And she works with the druids and scientists every day and she keeps going. Keeps going and going and going and she knows she no longer looks like a child.

She is not a child.

“I may be a druid, Marmoran.” She tells him, trying to keep her voice steady in the presence of the look the leader gives her. Even behind a mask she can tell he’s intimidating. Judging. “But I was their prisoner long before that. I did not choose to fight for them. I  _ did _ choose to be here.”

He continues to stare at her, long and hard, and it’s quiet. She cannot hear a single breath taken in that room, not even her own, and when he does reply, his words surprise her.

“Your mother would not want you to be here.”   
She smiles, though it’s small and sad and perhaps a tad angry. “We seldom get what we want, Leader.”

He says nothing else to her, just blinks and turns to the man beside him. “Fetch her blade. Prepare the Trials of Marmora.”

It doesn’t register until Thace is guiding her down a hall, where he gives her a skintight suit, that he had said  _ her _ blade and not  _ a _ blade.

  
  


She fights for hours, pushing through Blade members and walking, running, limping past them time and time again. She gains a deep gash on her shoulder and several other cuts and bruises on the rest of her body, many she knows will scar, for her efforts but she keeps going.

The blade is unfamiliar in her hand, a different weight and shape than she is used to, but it feels right. Better than any other blade she has wielded and she think she is meant to be here. That she’s meant to be a marmoran and so she keeps going, keeps fighting no matter how many times they tell her she’s not meant to go through the door.

It take her longer than she wishes to realize they are being literal and she sends herself down a door in the floor.

The second part of the trial confuses her and even to this day she’s not sure she understands it.

But at the end of it she awakens her blade and it glows and stretches into a sword that she swears is made just for her. When it’s done and she brings it down to her side, shoulder bleeding heavily still and face aching, Kolivan (as she came to learn is Leader’s name) comes to her and nods approvingly.

“That was your mother’s blade.” He tells her as if she already knew. She hadn’t of course, which he knows, and he keeps going. “She left it with you at the base. Wanted you to have it always.”

She learns the truth then. That her mother, Krolia, Kolivan tells her, had been sent on a mission to earth, where she crashed and was rescued by a terran man. This man, her father, would help her find the Blue Lion and together they guarded her. Along the way they fell in love and then Krolia had had her. Kolivan tells her her mother had planned to stay on earth, with her father and her for as long as she could, but that the Empire had found them and in a desperate hope that it would keep the Blue Lion safer, she had left earth.

Kyxia, who had apparently looked more galran as a baby, was too alien like to stay and her parents had decided it was safer for her to go with Krolia and so when she made it back to space and to the base, they had sent her to live at a base that was far from Empire traffic, where she would be safe while her mother was sent back to the Empire.

But the base was not safe. An agent was compromised on a mission and through the druids, his destination had been compromised. They had used him to find the base, so far from their regular traffic, and they had attacked.

They had slaughtered many, all without mercy. Kolivan says no one was left alive, that they had brutally killed every last one of them as the traitors the Empire saw them as. Kyxia was spared though, for she as a child, one born of rebellion, was seen as a boon, something they could use.

Children were more rare these days after all. And anyone that could be raised as a soldier was useful.

So Zarkon had gifted her to Zyli and that had been the start of it all. But they had not lost track of her.

It had taken them awhile to figure out where the lost child had been sent to, especially since they had clearly changed her name. Her parents had named her Keith, and she had been refashioned as Kyxia by Zyli, and since they had little to work with, there wasn’t much of a trail to follow. But find her they had, mostly thanks to her admission into the Academy, and they had kept watch ever since, waiting to see if she could one day return home, to where she belonged.

And Ulaz had deemed her ready. And Thace had. And now here she was.

It had been a long journey and a difficult path to her becoming a Blade, to her coming home and finally finding her way. For so long she had been Kyxia, a galran soldier used for nothing but bloodshed and destruction, but the Blade’s gave her someone else to be, something better.

They let her be Keith.

But to her, Keith was a concept. Keith was a little baby that had been safe and protected and loved. Keith knew her parents and knew what it was like to be happy.

Kyxia did not.

Funny how she finds herself wielding the terran name now, so unfamiliar to her face but so right all the same. Long a long forgotten favorite jacket.

Kyxia knew how to fight and kill and Kyxia knew everything about the Empire and Voltron and Haggar and quintessence.

Kyxia knew how to take them down.

They had taught her how to destroy, how to bleed red, and now she was going to use that knowledge and do the same to them.

Keith let her be herself but Kyxia let her win.

So she goes. She went back to the Empire, back to Haggar, now with a hidden blade strapped to her thigh, and she watched and waited and she had recorded. She had gathered as much as she could, as fast as she could, and slowly but surely, Haggar trusted her more.

The druids could tell when the Galra were lying and hiding things but Kyxia wasn’t just galra. She was a druid too and she knew how to hide from them.

How else had she kept the source of her magic from them? Because she knew why those marks had appeared on her cheek and she knew Haggar knew but Haggar didn’t know that she knew. Haggar didn’t know she was coming.

But she was, she thinks, staring out the window at the terran life outside, watching as they moved and lived so freely. 

She was coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro is next! Tell me what you guys thought about this one it was full of me nitpicking it lol.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on tumblr @kkeithkatt.  
> I have another work of fem sheith thats full of drabbles/oneshots so if you have a request head on over there.  
> This is my first long fic for Voltron so I hope you guys like it.


End file.
